SOA Maturity Model

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has emerged as the most significant shift in how business applications are designed, developed and implemented in the last 10 years, eclipsing the shift to client-server. In fact, Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2008, "SOA will provide the basis for 80 percent of new development projects."
While IT is quick to embrace the technical value of service-oriented design, development and implementation, IT executives face the very different challenge of accurately managing the investment in technology as it relates to business value. These IT managers and decision makers need help and guidance in communicating the business value of their SOA vision and to be able to benchmark their SOA adoption within the organization.
To address this challenge, Sonic Software and its partners jointly developed a New SOA Maturity Model (SOA MM). The model is designed to show the increasingly positive impact of SOA adoption from a business benefits perspective. It provides IT decision makers with simple framework for benchmarking the strategic value of their SOA implementation, and a model for visualizing future success.

This New SOA Maturity Model provides a framework for discussion between IT and business users about the applicability and benefits of SOA in an organization across five levels of adoption maturity. The goal of its authors is not only to provide a means for organizations to benchmark current implementations, but to offer a source of inspiration as IT leaders visualize a path to successfully advance the value of SOA for their organizations.