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SOA Watch: Calculating the cost of SOA

By David S. Linthicum

October 1, 2008 — (Page 1 of 3)

I get the same question over and over again: How much will my SOA cost?

There are so many things wrong with that question that I don’t even like to respond, because it’s the classic IT geek response: It depends. It depends on the number of services, if they exist; the cost of externalization; and the cost of the application development or processing/orchestration layers. Oh, yeah—we also need to understand your business and the core problems that exist there before we get started. The list goes on, and you can’t figure out the true cost of a SOA until you’ve figured out these things first.

Moreover, SOA is architecture and thus should transcend a single project, so it’s tough to narrow down the cost of a SOA to a single instance of incremental work. Perhaps the better question is: What will I probably spend for my instance, and how does that work into a larger strategic plan? Confusing, I know, but follow me here.

Truth be told, you can't cost out a SOA like a construction project; there are many dynamic elements to SOA that make an exact estimation, without much supporting data, difficult. Let’s face it, we’ve not done many of these at this point, thus the data is simply not there to support the metrics. However, here are some very “general" guidelines to follow:

The problem that I see over and over again is that cost estimates are provided without a clear understanding of the work needed to be done. Indeed, you need to budget some time to create the budget. This means understanding the domain in detail, including:

»	Number of data elements
»	Complexity of data storage technology
»	System complexity
»	Service complexity
»	Process complexity
»	New services needed
»	Enabling technology
»	Applicable standards
»	Potential risks

Typically, this formula is expressed as:

Related Search Term(s): professional development, SOA & SaaS

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