Is SOA Valid for SaaS from a Business Perspective?

Apr 8, 2008 by Sinclair Schuller

Ok, I admit that I have a fetish for buzz acronyms, but I promise the use of service oriented architectures (SOA) and SaaS in this posts title is appropriate and introduces an important topic! Specifically, I’d like to tackle SaaS implementation approaches and how these different approaches relate to a SaaS business.

When deciding on how to technologically tackle a SaaS implementation, a software company should understand their marketplace and business strategy needs. B2B SaaS offerings that focus on businesses small and large generally bump into questions like:

1. Does your SaaS offering have an API?
2. Is cross-application interoperability important?
3. Do you need interoperability across broad technologies or are you targeting a single technology for interoperability?

In today’s on-demand world, companies like Salesforce have established an expectations baseline. B2B applications are expected to have APIs, as well as the ability to bridge technology divides from an integrations standpoint, and provide policy control over functional parts of an application. This provides a technological foundation for strategic partnerships that not only serve to tackle markets that may require legacy support, but actually deliver value at the same time (imagine that). Implementing a SaaS offering from a technical viewpoint can be divided, at the highest level, into two very broad categories: non-SOA and SOA.

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Looking purely (from a 30,000 foot vantage point) at the positive attributes that SOA and non-SOA implementations bring to the table, in my opinion pursuing a SOA implementation does wonders for setting up a technological foundation that can be used to promote effective business strategies. Taking the non-SOA approach is great for getting to market quickly, but in the B2B space it can become increasingly cumbersome to support new initiatives and plans. To some degree, the market is starting to agree with this concept: SaaS offerings and consumer Web 2.0 apps expose a variety of interfaces as business expansion points. New SaaS implementations should seriously consider SOA as a foundational architecture if the company expects to encounter some of the business needs mentioned.

Do you agree that technology and architecture choices can significantly impact business strategy, or are they inherently uncoupled?

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