SOA Job Opportunities
New Jobs in SOA
SOA need data center architect who is dedicated to overseeing computing, management, facilities, networking, and security, who is on the look out, thinking always at least ten years in advance of current trends and considering how modern day Service Oriented Architecture will affect power requirements in the future.
Moving to a more centralized data center that utilize service oriented architecture; virtualization, as well as other new technologies should get Businesses to start thinking more in terms of extended job definitions for its Information Technology employees as well.
One of the reasons why an increase in quality control in Businesses is required is that the overhauling of data centers can be rather hard to accomplish. In a recent survey, it was revealed that less than half of the eighty two executives from sixty five different Businesses felt that their data center strategies were successful. Issues like an increase in power requirements, server and storage growth, increased power needs, and floor space and availability must be struggled with on a daily basis.
Businesses are also beginning to feel more pressure to rework their data centers, as more and more of them are becoming outdated as the years go by. In the same survey mentioned above, about a third of those interviewed claimed that their data centers went up in the ‘80s and that another third were constructed in the following decade.
Over half of those surveyed claimed that their Businesses have consolidated data centers in the last year. More than half also claim that they have consolidation plans for the upcoming year. About half also claim that they have their data center construction on tap for the next eighteen months.
Nearly half of the respondents in the survey claim that their data centers are being managed by a director of operations. This can be good as well as bad. It is good because operations leaders tend to be rather good at keeping things up and running and maintaining low overhead. At the same time, such directors usually do not take a long term view of the situation.
While few organizations have the sort of data center architects as described in the first para, in the near future everyone will require someone to work in such a position. Moreover, a storage team should be employed in order to oversee all matters related to the storage of data.
As storage requirements continue to grow, more and more organizations are finding the sheer amount of data hard to deal with – especially as they begin saving such pieces of data as e-mail in case they are ever called upon to go to court.
Another vital job that will emerge as a pertinent requirement in the future is a compute manager who will be in charge of getting CPU cycles to users while also overseeing the continuance of Business.
Service delivery managers are also being hired by SOA organizations as a means of ensuring that services that are enabled by virtualized data centers are able to make their way to users. Such managers define and implement service level agreements while simultaneously tracking down service delivery metrics. While a lot of organizations do not have SLAs, more and more companies are on their way towards developing them.
The establishment and maintenance of high service levels is being driven largely by Information Technology Businesses as a means of self preservation. After all, such organizations do not want to see their jobs outsourced in the near future.
Tighter links will inevitably have to be forged between data center management groups and non Information Technology Business teams – this includes facilities, compliance, legal, and human resources departments.
Businesses that succeed in managing their data center management strategies should be able to see a major pay off in the future. It has been indicated that such technologies as virtualization can lead to the saving of several million dollars on labor and hardware costs. Companies will thus be elevated into a position of greater flexibility in terms of applications.
SOA Career Path Benefits
Service Oriented Architecture creates enormous benefits for individuals employed in the field of Information Technology. We will now take a look at some of the career path opportunities that Service Oriented Architecture potentially presents.
A lot of Information Technology Businesses that do not have well defined architectures do not have such a broad career path available for ambitious people who wish to stay technical and not go into management field. Typically, there are only a few different levels of development – say, programming, analyzing, etc. – that are followed by an architectural role.
Since there is only so much space available for architects, many people get stuck in the role of senior programmer for years on end. People stuck in the senior programmer role tend to either leave due to lack of opportunities, become miserable and unmotivated, or go into management for the sole purpose of earning a promotion before eventually leaving or returning to development.
Once Service Oriented Architecture enters the picture, specialized duties and job responsibilities are included in each of the below mentioned tiers.
- Presentation Layer is assigned to Web Developers
- System Process Analysts takes care of Business Process Layer
- Business Rules Layer is assigned to Software Architects
- Data Services Layer is overlooked by Information Architects
- Database Administrators handle Database Layers
- Security Architects is responsible for Security Layer and
- Enterprise Architects handle Enterprise Service Bus
Some of the roles, such as Configuration Management and DBA, will probably already exist in your current Business. Some of the others may be new to you – or they may change drastically over time in terms of responsibility. The bottom line is that for Businesses who boast a team of talented yet frustrated Information Technology employees, then Service Oriented Architecture might be the ideal compromise.
Many of the roles, such as Enterprise Architect and Process Analyst, will be best suited for technical minded individuals who also boast excellent communication skills. Such individuals will be required to interact with the Business quite often.
Individuals who do not wish to deal with the Business side can take on other jobs, such as Object Librarian, Configuration Management, or Information Architect. Junior developers or individuals who prefer dealing with web development can focus exclusively on the presentation tier. Such individuals will be very productive, as the vast majority of the Business services and rules will be available to be assembled into the UI’s. Individuals who enjoy writing code can dwell in the Business rules tier, where important services and components may be developed.
More experienced developers will be able to construct enterprise wide services and components, such as authentication, encryption, and error handling. Other individuals will be required to focus on specific application services and components, like printing invoices, the creation of orders, and a whole lot more.
It is true that many Information Technology Businesses employ a lot of people who do not deal well with change. Such individuals are reluctant to take on new roles in a Service Oriented Architecture environment. Being given jobs that focus on maintaining the legacy systems can placate such individuals.
In short, switching to a Service Oriented Architecture is incredibly beneficial in any work environment. It enables Information Technology professionals to take on new roles while extending a company’s Information Technology career path. Since more and more companies will move towards Service Oriented Architecture in the coming years, the need for professionals in such a field will be quite high.
This is why it is a good idea for employees to embrace Service Oriented Architecture when their company decides to use it. Service Oriented Architecture is the way of future, and is bound to create numerous opportunities for those so inclined to take advantage of them.
SOA Governance Needs to Make Data Improvements
Services can be thought of as transactional behavior fronting data. While some services are built as true data services, they are still services and must be dealt with; they must also deal with data management themselves. While every single SOA governance product does take into the account the control and usage of services, a lot of people tend to ignore data management issues. Thus only a part of the problem gets solved efficiently. This is seen as a major setback in the typical approaches made in SOA governance.
Both run time and design time Service Oriented Architecture governance products tend to take into account service as a conceptual entity while ignoring the concept of data management – particularly the concept of abstraction from the physical database, not to mention the management of changes from orchestrations to abstractions, composites, and physical data.
When taking into consideration SOA governance, data must be dealt with and taken into consideration in an effective manner. Services are quite important, but they tend to deal with information. We must pay attention to all sides of the problem in order to get the job done effectively.
