My good friend Brenda M. Michelson, who's been on the SOA report podcast in the past, is working with the SOA Consortium around a SOA case study contest. The consortium's Web site explains:
Similar to the inaugural contest in 2008, the goal of the SOA Case Study Competition is to highlight business success stories and lessons learned to provide proof points and insights for other organizations considering or pursuing SOA adoption. To qualify for the competition, the SOA project must be complete with demonstrated business results.
[ Check out the podcast: Brenda Michelson and I talk about SOA process | Keep up on developments in SOA with InfoWorld's Technology: Architecture newsletter. ]
Why is this interesting? While we have many case studies that are provided by vendors to highlight the goodness of their technology, we have little insight around who's making money from SOA these days, though I know those projects exist. SOA is beginning to show a profit; however, those working these projects are not likely to write whitepapers and articles about them, and we're not able to benefit from their successes or, more likely, failures that lead to successes.
We've been kicking around the idea of having a single location where SOA best practices and case studies are stored, allowing those just starting down the road to SOA to get a good understanding of what works and what does not before diving in on their own problems. I'm not sure we're going to see that, for many reasons, but this case study contest should produce some interesting data points for those of you starved for best practices in SOA.
We need to start sharing. This is a good first step.