SOA & Business Analysts

The term, "SOA", has been thrown around a lot in the professional world and often means different things to different people. 

What exactly does SOA mean?

Instead of having separate monolithic applications that function independently, an organization invests in developing reusable “services”. These services (applications) would not need to be developed over and over again when needed since they can be reused.

With SOA, different applications can easily be integrated and gain access to the same data or features. One common example of an SOA implementation is Amazon Web Services. Another example is having a code with the capability to convert measurements from “ft to cm” which can be reused in other applications when needed.

SOA is being used increasingly across organizations. Business Analysts that understand how it works can set themselves apart from the crowd. This implies that the way business analysts are required to analyse requirements within an SOA environment is certainly different from the traditional approach.

Service-orientation is not limited to architecture design and extends to business analysis. BAs would be expected to work with Enterprise Architects and SOA experts to determine how best requirements and business rules can be crafted and grouped for maximum visibility and efficiency during SOA implementation.

Picture Attribution: "Button Of Service Isolated On White Background" by cbenjasuwan/Freedigitalphotos.net