SOA gets mobilized; mobile gets SOA-ized: survey

Is mobile the "killer app" that will increase adoption of service oriented practices?  Is SOA the key to a common foundation that integrates enterprises' mobile strategies?

SearchSOA just completed a readership survey on SOA plans and practices, and an interesting trend popped up: SOA-aware services are finding new implementations in the mobile space.

SearchSOA's Stephanie Mann reports that "wider efforts" are imminent to employ service oriented architecture as a foundation for mobile apps: "While only 21% of respondents said they are using SOA services for mobile apps now, 52% said they plan to do so in the future." The survey also finds an accelerating commitment to funding mobile app development and integration within enterprises. About 44% said mobile apps "will gain more of the application integration budget within their organization in the next two years."

Commenting on the survey results, Gartner's Anne Thomas Manes opines that results suggest that “maybe mobile is the killer app for SOA that actually will convince people to adopt the architectural style, the paradigm.” She adds that “If you want to design an application system which can simultaneously support desktop browsers, desktop applications, mobile applications, programmatic interfaces and others, you need to be designing that system as a service.”

A well-designed service oriented architecture should be quickly adaptable to any type of client device or endpoint that is brought into the network. In the end, it shouldn't matter how end-users are grabbing applications or data. iPhones and iPads and other smartphones and tablets weren't around a few years ago, but SOA proponents knew their infrastructure had to be ready for anything that came along.

(Photo: Wikipedia.)