Reaping the Benefits
Businesses want agility, but they also want and need risk management. The combination of SOA and ITSM provides just that: agility, risk management and governance, while maintaining operational synergies. SOA and ITSM are interdependent upon one another and companies will benefit from that as they implement these two IT initiatives together.
Developing an integrated approach to SOA with ITSM usually requires a phased roadmap, which takes time. The vital starting point is not technology, but identifying the business-specific services in an organization.
Ultimately, an organization can achieve a federated, service-oriented enterprise. By combining SOA with ITSM, an IT department can most definitely improve business efficiencies, reduce costs, increase agility and sustain a higher quality of service.
Ken Hamilton is founder and past chairman of itSMF USA, and currently a director of the ITSM Practice at HP Education Services. He is also a recipient of the itSMF USA Life-time Achievement award.
With 20 years in high-tech, Mark LaJeunesse is the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) program manager for Hewlett-Packard Services’ Consulting and Integration business.