Real World SOA

My name is Sonny Ali and I am a Program Manager on the Global ISV team responsible for the technical strategy in the ERP and CRM sectors. As we all know, the ERP and CRM sectors have been going through unprecedented consolidation. Mergers and acquisitions are the norm and ISVs are faced with new challenges of integrating software assets, overcoming overlaps and thinking about cross-sell and up-sell scenarios. One of key methodologies for integration and re-use of software assets is the adoption of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

At Microsoft, we started our SOA journey back in 1998 when Bill Gates sent a memo across the company asking us all to start thinking about Web Services. Although Web services are not required to achieve service orientation, it is the most common mechanism. Fast forward to 2007 and you will see that Microsoft is playing a key role in the standards front, such as leading the Web Services effort in offering products and platforms for our customers and partners and making it is easy and less costly to achieve SOA.

Microsoft will continue to invest heavily in this area and take a practical approach in developing technologies and platforms that help our customers reach the benefits of SOA. This practical approach has provided a wide array of technologies that can help companies achieve SOA objectives, regardless of their size, environment or complexity.

In the coming months, I will be publishing detailed SOA articles covering WCF, ESB, and more in this blog.

I would also like to invite everyone to attend our annual SOA & Business Process Conference (Oct 29 – Nov 2) at the Microsoft Conference Center on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, WA! During 4 days of breakout sessions, peer networking, social events, and interaction with the Microsoft product groups, our customers, partners and Microsoft employees will learn about our current portfolio and long-term strategy for SOA & Business Process. Whether your customers/partners are developers, architects, or business/technical decision makers we will have something for everyone—with tracks spanning the full spectrum of technology, architecture, and business value topics.

This year’s lineup of over 70 sessions, delivered by speakers from across the company and our ISV and SI ecosystem, is the broadest collection of “Real World” guidanceto date and offers an incredible opportunity to get added visibility into our portfolio of SOA & Business Process capabilities.

We look forward to hearing from you and hopefully seeing you at the conference.

Regards,

Sonny Ali