Reacting to this dilemma, enterprises have created positions called enterprise architects. They are single individuals, or groups, in an organization who are responsible for driving the enterprise architecture strategy going forward. While a good idea in theory, the reality is that many of these enterprise architects simply don't have the political or budgetary clout in their companies or government agencies to make much of a difference. Many times they have been relegated to creating reports and presentations that nobody reads and providing direction and guidance that's easily ignored.

So, without good architectural governance and ongoing corporate management pressure to redirect resources to tactical IT projects, enterprise architectures continue to become more unnecessarily complex, static, and fragile. What was a mere annoyance only a few years ago today is a clearly limiting factor in the ability of business to create shareholder value. The company can't easily shift into new and emerging markets, acquire companies, and adjust major business processes without a great deal of latency. In some cases, they're completely unable to change. In other words, things are bad and getting worse.

SOA isn't a miracle cure for bad architectures. However, it's a step in the right direction for those looking to move their existing enterprise architectures into something much more efficient and valuable to the business. Those who embrace SOA as a practical architectural pattern in the context of a long-term strategic architectural plan, and can execute architectural rejuvenation without tactical interruption, will find that they're quickly ahead of the game. SOA provides two primary values. First is the ability to save development dollars by reusing services. Second is the ability to change the IT infrastructure faster to adapt to the changing needs of the business. Agility is SOA's primary value proposition, and enterprise architecture's for that matter.

Those looking to leverage SOA are tempted to sign up for the SOA-in-a-box type of solution...perhaps an ESB, a BPEL engine, or a governance tools, or all of them. Unfortunately, "buying-and-bolting-on" technology solves very little, and can actually make things worse. As ZapThink has said many times, SOA is something you do, not something you buy. But the buying patterns of those in the planning stages of SOA are still very much influenced by "hype-driven" "manage-by-magazine" solutions that can cause many people to find SOA distasteful if the technology doesn't live up to the hype. There are no quick fixes; real work must be done.

Indeed, doing SOA is a complex undertaking, and you'll have to learn a great deal to become efficient with the emerging approaches, techniques, technologies, and methods. Those who are successful at SOA plan and design long before they develop and implement. The path to a truly strategic and valuable SOA is something that only comes to those who understand the importance of the work leading up to the technology. They also have corporate sponsorship, appropriate funding, and proper amounts of mentoring and training.

The movement toward a SOA should be something that has key strategic significance in a company or agency, much like a new product or line of business. In fact, a well-planned well-implemented SOA will be far more valuable by comparison, considering its long-term ROI. In essence, SOA should have boardroom visibility.
Sometimes it seems that architecture must have a lousy PR agency. The value is clear to anyone who analyzes the real cost of the limits that bad enterprise architecture put on the business. However, the negative effects on the business are still widely accepted and thought of as something that really can't be fixed. Nothing could be further from the truth. If those who manage a company aren't motivated to fix their architectural issues themselves, perhaps shareholder lawsuits or missed strategic opportunities that cancel yearly bonuses will become the new motivator.