Measuring the Degree of Service Orientation in Proprietary SOA Systems

According to a survey conducted by Forrester Research in 2008, at least 44% of North American, European, and Asian-Pacific enterprises have adopted SOA (Service-oriented Architecture), and at least 63% would adopt it by the end of 2008. A more recent survey by Forrester also shows that SOA adoption remains strong in 2010. Nevertheless, there are many misconceptions about SOA, which could lead to sub optimal implementation of the paradigm. This paper is not about whether to adopt or not to adopt SOA. Instead, this paper proposes a method on how to judge an SOA implementation from architectural point of view. More specifically, we evaluate the extent to which proprietary SOA systems conform to the principles of service orientation. To this aim, a framework of Degree of Service Orientation (DoSO) has been developed. This framework is applied to nine proprietary SOA systems and the results show that, on average, the degree of service orientation is rather low. Experts´ evaluation on the usefulness of the framework is also discussed.