... and he has the money!
Perhaps this thread should be in the tech off section, but it's just not technical.
My business doesn't like technology. Spending £12 million a year for the last five to be locked into IBM and what do we have to show for it, a HUGE mainframe app, which we can't sell, that costs a fortunate to expand, takes forever to change on an operating
system that isn't supported any more ... and thats just the server side ... we have ONLY just got off Novell, OS2 and Windows 95! Its an expensive mess and IBM have now walked away saying 'thanks suckers!'
I'm finding it hard to convince the money men that Web Services and SOA aren't all Hyperbole and it's a real evolution this time not a scary revolution.
The problem is in the IT industry we have cried wolf so often, that no one is going to listen even when it's a good idea and can save cash.
Perhaps I should leave copies of this article around, what do you think ?
http://roadmap.cbdiforum.com/reports/roi/
What I really want to hear is real developers experiences, what do you guys think ?
-Sabot
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Sabot
My name is Dave Oliver. I'm a Technical Architect.
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Jeremy W
that blogging guy
Sounds like an issue of front vs back selling. I'd read this as quoted to Tim Bray, but now I can't find it to link to it... So this is all second hand...
Anyways.
Your managers wont' make decisions based on tech. They'll make decisions based on ROI, value propositions, customer satisfaction matrices, etc.
But techies will make decisions based on an entirely different set of metrics: availability, scalability, etc.
The challenge is to look at a given technology and see if it is actually beneficial from a business standpoint, right now.
Often you'll find that it isn't, at least where your company is at.
Do a reality check: what does your company do well, what does it do poorly and what kinds of things could tank it in the next 5 years.
Does the technology you're looking at:
1. Improve what you do well
2. Mitigate or solve things you do poorly
3. Mitigate or solve threats that may come your way in the short to medium term
If it doesn't, it's probably not worthwhile to pitch it.
At least, says me... And we all know how little that's worth
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Sabot wrote:we have ONLY just got off Novell, OS2 and Windows 95! Its an expensive mess
I assume by that statement that you have upgraded machines to 2k or XP. If that is the case, this is the WRONG time to move towards web-services. If you still had various systems running that would be the perfect time to start looking at web-apps because you can keep your system modern.
I also believe that Web-Apps and SOA are too young and by jumping on board now the company would just waste money in the future trying to keep with the ever evolving standards.
I find it curious you didn't mention what you wanted the company to do with the web-apps. Just simply that you think they should move to them..
Also, what about investments in current technology? How much time and money would be wasted?
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Cider
Daze-d & Confused
Isn't this the sort of discussion that was covered with the excellent Nerd, Suit & Fortune Teller presentation that was done by Pat Helland et al at Tech Ed Amsterdam this year and video shown on Channel 9?
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=15157
Have a watch. Sure, its more than an hour long but a hell of a funny and interesting presentation. -
Sabot wrote:... and he has the money!
Perhaps this thread should be in the tech off section, but it's just not technical.
My business doesn't like technology. Spending £12 million a year for the last five to be locked into IBM and what do we have to show for it, a HUGE mainframe app, which we can't sell, that costs a fortunate to expand, takes forever to change on an operating system that isn't supported any more ... and thats just the server side ... we have ONLY just got off Novell, OS2 and Windows 95! Its an expensive mess and IBM have now walked away saying 'thanks suckers!'
I'm finding it hard to convince the money men that Web Services and SOA aren't all Hyperbole and it's a real evolution this time not a scary revolution.
The problem is in the IT industry we have cried wolf so often, that no one is going to listen even when it's a good idea and can save cash.
Perhaps I should leave copies of this article around, what do you think ?
http://roadmap.cbdiforum.com/reports/roi/
What I really want to hear is real developers experiences, what do you guys think ?
-Sabot
Convincing the boss is never easy, requires some serious work. However, SOA tempts any developer. Web services sound interesting and attractive to developers, so the business owner has to be careful.
The best reason to use web services and SOA I can think of is the use of mobile devices. Sooner or later, when you deploy mobile devices you would need SOA. Another reason could be when you develop something in perl, another thing in java, and something else in .net. You need SOA to be able to develop those applications. SOA gives a lot of flexibility in the long run.
I would go with these two strong reasons to convert to SOA.
Of course, if you have partners who want to interoperate with your architecture, SOA is a must-have too.
The article is good but some of the reasons mentione there won't sound interesting to a boss, I think.
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harumscarum
out of memory
We must work at the same type of place Sabot.
It really feels like IBM is just another employee around here. Unfortunately for us ideas are only accepted when they are mentioned by IBM.
I have always had success from developing proof of concepts for management. I usually have the mindset that if I it least put it out there and bring the idea I can not be too disappointed.
Have you done any production development with SOA yet?
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