Enterprise Abstraction

Library SOA buzz

There have been several recent developments in Library SOA buzz.  Here's the quickie list:

Richard has reviewed a report entitled Web Services and the Service-Oriented Architecture by Marshall Breeding.  He also points out the NISO document Best Practices for Designing Web Services in the Library Context (PDF), more on that one in my post on that topic.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Peter Murray, on his blog the Disruptive Library Technology Jester, has made a series of postings that talk about library SOA.

I'll be attending the Digital Library Federations workshop on Developing a Services Framework for Digital Libraries in Boston on November 7.

The following week November 14th, I'll be attending a symposium on the future of the ILS (and lots of SOA I think) at the University of Windsor (sorry, no link - no website that I can determine).

So, whilst SOA seemed to be getting a slow start in the library world, it certainly seems to be getting a foothold this past while.  I'm looking forward to some good discussions.

International EA Survey

This might be old news.  I just stumbled across this site that has made available a survey covering the governmental adoption of EA across a number of countries, including Canada, UK, US.  Note that the survey is really talking about governmental adoption of EA, not the amount of adoption in a given country.

Key survey findings:                   

• EA on a national level is emerging fast
• Limited realisation of EA goals
• Less than one half of the governments are measuring EA program performance
• Less than one fifth of the governments are calculating the ratio EA benefits to cost

The survey is a partial continuation of an international EA survey started in 2003 by The International Council for Information Technology in Government Administration (ICA, http:/www.ica-it.org). Throughout 2003 – 2004 ICA's Enterprise Architecture study group, consisting of EA competencies from ten ICA member countries, conducted a conceptual survey of the national EA activities in the ICA member countries.

The survey seems to particularly illustrate a lack of metrics and governance, likely due to the relative lack of maturity of most of the federal level EA's at this point in time.  Also, with regard to tools, the data suggests to me that a lot of places are using Visio or similar modelling tools as opposed to more rigorous architecture specific tools.  Here's a direct link to the survey findings PDF.

-- Via GotzeTagged