Bob Smith, the CIO at Generic Industries, just returned from a CIO Conference in Las Vegas. During the first week back, he called you into his office and told you about a seminar he attended about Service Oriented Architectures. He thought the technology sounded promising in helping to reduce the current backlog the IT has in regards to tickets, fixes, reports, etc (about 6 months, and growing). He also thought it would help improve the versatility of the systems they currently own.

He is asking you to some further investigation to help determine if Generic Industries should consider this technology to help with the issues stated above. Generic Industries currently has the following systems:

Manufacturing – custom coded UNIX system, 12 years old

Materials Management – custom coded UNIX system, 10 years old

Sales and Distribution – configured vendor package software, 6 years old

Accounts Payable, Receivables, Finance – configured vendor package software, 8 years old

Customer Relationship Management – configured vendor package software, 1 year old

HR – ASP Web-based application, 2 years old

Integration between the applications is managed by Cloverleaf, a UNIX solution.

Most business processes are currently documented, but only the manufacturing business processes are actively (e.g. continuously) monitored. Application support staff is grouped by application – integration of development efforts is typically strained for enterprise-wide development efforts.

Based on this description, write a three to four page paper on the initial feasibility of implementing Service Oriented Architecture at this organization. Be sure to include some of the advantages SOA may provide Generic Industries, and also some of the drawbacks/challenges. You are allowed to make assumptions in the paper, but be sure to note those assumptions as you go along.