Pick Up the Pace: 78% of Government Technologists Concerned with Federal Government’s Slow SOA Adoption Rate
Fear private sector is outpacing government agencies in SOA deployments
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, April 23, 2008 — Results from a survey conducted by Micro Focus® (LSE.MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application management and modernization solutions, reveal that 78 percent of government technologists are either “concerned” or “very concerned” about government organizations’ slow pace to adopt service oriented architecture (SOA). The survey, administered by Micro Focus and completed by 68 federal government IT professionals attending FOSE 2008, also shows that 89 percent of respondents believe the private sector is outpacing government agencies in their adoption of SOA architectures.
Despite the organization-wide benefits associated with migrating to a service oriented architecture, which include increased flexibility and visibility, reusable business services and significant cost savings, government agencies have been slow to adopt SOA strategies. While 93 percent of respondents believe that government agencies would benefit from a more proactive approach to SOA, government IT professionals are clearly frustrated by the lack of progress to date.
When asked why they think government organizations have been slow to embrace service oriented architectures, common answers included the “perception that change is difficult,” a “lack of understanding about SOA benefits,” and the “failure of senior management to support SOA” initiatives.
“Because of the success they’ve seen in the private sector, federal government agencies are just now starting to warm up to the idea of application modernization and are starting to develop SOA strategies,” said Charles Krahling, vice president of channels at Micro Focus. “So many mission-critical applications and process are written in older, steady programming languages like COBOL, and government organizations must develop strategies to bring them into a SOA-enabled world. With SOA, government agencies can continue to use the systems that work best for them and extend their lifetime, while avoiding costly ‘rip and replace’ strategies.”
Only 12 percent believe that the most effective SOA migration strategy would be to “rip and replace” their entire IT infrastructure and start over from scratch – a strategy that would involve significant time, cost and resource commitments. Instead, 83 percent of respondents believe that the most effective strategy is to modernize existing, core systems and applications to allow them to operate in an SOA environment.
“Over the past year or so, SOA has jumped to the top of the priority list for IT organizations across all sectors – including government,” said Kevin Moultrup, executive vice president of North American operations at Micro Focus. “But there is no question that the private sector has adopted SOA standards more rapidly and, as a result, has more quickly reaped the benefits of more agile, flexible and cost-effective IT architectures enabled by SOA. Micro Focus works with customers across the private and public sectors, enabling them to transition their core applications to SOA environments.”
About Micro Focus
Micro Focus, a member of the FTSE 250, provides innovative software that allows companies to dramatically improve the business value of their enterprise applications. Micro Focus Enterprise Application Modernization and Management software enables customers’ business applications to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk. For additional information please visit www.microfocus.com
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