It was mentioned in the beginning of Chapter 2, "J2EE Software Development Methodologies," that the computing industry recognizes very clearly the failure rate of application development efforts, which is currently running at approximately 70%. Because every IT project has its own nuances of challenges, technology itself is not the only factor for such a dismal failure rate. However, the consequences of adopting a specific technology can very easily contribute to the success or failure of an IT project, even if it is deferred to another point-in-time. To avoid being a contributor to this statistic, organizations are beginning to think differently and ask themselves what nirvana would look like for a business solution from an enterprise standpoint. This is a major shift from the traditional deliver the application by just meeting the requirements paradigm. Organizations recognize that today's business solutions are susceptible to becoming legacy in the near future if they do not consider:
It is extremely rare to see computing heavyweights such as IBM, Microsoft, Sun, BEA, Oracle, HP, and others agree on anything, yet they all concur Web services will be the native language of the next generation of Internet-based applications. Web services hold a promise of simplifying integration across many aspects of the enterprise by providing:
Based upon the above attributes, Web services can provide the following business value propositions to organizations:
Because the Web services technology is very new, in order for organizations to participate in the Web services landscape, an investment is required in the adoption of the Web services “ related technologies and required skills. The Web services technology is under evolution, similar to that of J2EE. For this reason, it is imperative organizations first prove the fundamental principles of Web services and upon success provide standards for designing, developing, and deploying Web services. Without proven standards, user organizations run the risk of misapplying this technology and incurring extra cost in both development and execution of software systems. |