SOA Hot Topic Roundtable: SOA in a Green World, Thought Leaders & Meeting Attendees

Continuing our practice of exploring SOA’s relationship with hot technology and business topics, at our March meeting, we hosted a roundtable discussion on How SOA Participates in a Green World.

The roundtable began with the industry experts, Sandy Carter of IBM, David Linthicum of Blue Mountain Labs and Richard Soley of the SOA Consortium sharing their thoughts on how SOA contributes to the greening of business and IT, how BPM augments SOA’s green factor, and the priority of sustainability initiatives in the current economic climate.

In their remarks, each roundtable leader spoke of economic benefits gained by companies and cities that reduce energy and water consumption and lower carbon emissions. Beyond greening data centers and application portfolios via service-oriented techniques, organizations are using business process management techniques – modeling, instrumentation and dashboards – powered by SOA underpinnings, to optimize supply chains for both direct cost and sustainability. An interesting metric shared by Sandy Carter is that for every dollar you save through carbon management, you save $6 of operational cost.

After the opening insights, the roundtable leaders engaged in discussion with each other and meeting attendees on a variety of topics including the greenness of cloud computing and virtualization, the transition of traditional hardware products to software, carbon management mandates, the power of individual green advocates and the need for common, standardized key green indicators, or KGIs.

Presentation Abstract:
Our objective with the SOA in a Green World Roundtable was simple. We wanted to generate a meaningful conversation between Thought Leaders and meeting attendees on how SOA participates in a green world.

SOA in a Green World Thought Leaders:

• Sandy Carter, VP, SOA, BPM and WebSphere, IBM

• David Linthicum, SOA expert and founder, Blue Mountain Labs

• Dr. Richard Mark Soley, Executive Director, SOA Consortium

Roundtable thought leaders were asked to open by sharing thoughts on any of the following SOA and Green World aspects:

1) How does SOA contribute to the ‘greening’ of business? Is there a direct connection? Or, is the connection indirect, via business solutions delivered using a SOA approach? Please share examples.

2) How does SOA contribute to the ‘greening’ of IT? Is it simply via economy of scale achieved via shared resources? Does it reach further, enabling broader data center efficiencies? What else?

3) What techniques do organizations use to ensure their SOA approach/implementation is green? Who bears responsibility for SOA’s greenness?

4) Given the close ties between BPM & SOA, how, if it all does BPM enhance SOA’s participation in a Green World? Is it through the disciplines of modeling and measurement? Something else?

5) As other factors in a bad economy predominate, will sustainability concerns move to the backburner?

After the opening insights, Brenda Michelson, SOA Consortium Program Director, facilitated a Roundtable discussion between the Thought Leaders and meeting attendees. Meeting attendees were encouraged to share their perspectives on the above and ask questions.

About the Speakers:

Sandy Carter, Vice President, SOA, BPM & WebSphere for IBM Corporation, is the leader of a global marketing organization with over 20 marketing awards, and author of the successful SOA technology book called, "The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0."
Sandy is responsible for IBM's cross-company, worldwide SOA marketing initiatives and is in charge of one of IBM's premiere brands -- IBM WebSphere. Under her leadership, IBM WebSphere has realized 15 consecutive quarters of growth at constant currency. Sandy runs IBM's marketing board for SOA which encompasses all software, services and product units as well as supporting units of finance, support and enablement. She also works closely with acquired organizations to ensure their successful integration into the IBM SOA portfolio. In addition, she directs SOA messaging and content, leading a global team in driving customer demand for IBM and IBM Business Partner SOA solutions. As the worldwide leader for Channels, Sandy has grown the SOA Business Partner ecosystem to over 5,000 companies.

Sandy is a frequent speaker at industry events sponsored by InfoWorld magazine, Forrester, Gartner Group, IDC and Women In Technology (WITI). She is an active member of WITI and a member of the WITI Executive Advisory Council, the Marketing Focus Advisory Council (where she was named winner of the Best Speaker Award); the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Inner Circle, and the American Management Association (AMA). She also serves as a Board Member of the Grace Hopper Industry Advisory Committee and is the Co-Lead IBM Partnership Executive at Duke University. Sandy also serves as a Board Member of the Forrester Research CMO Board. Sandy is listed in Madison's Who's Who, and is a founding member of the Women in Technology Global Executive Network (GEN) program for senior executive women. Sandy has twice won the AIT Global most valuable member of the year award for the United Nations ICT for Sustainable Development.

Sandy has also published more than 32 industry perspectives and bylines focused on SOA in news media outlets such as ZDNet, CIO, Search SOA, DM Review, SOA World, developer.com, Enterprise Systems, and the news report of the Technology Council of Southern California. Sandy has written a second book, to be released on November 4, called "The New Language of Marketing 2.0: How to Use ANGELS to Energize Your Market." In it, Sandy shares her perspective on next generation marketing techniques, such as blogs, twitter, social media, widgets, viral marketing, and more, that address the complexities of today's business world. Coupled with over 54 customer case studies and her own success stories, Sandy shows how to drive results in a more cost effective way.

Sandy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in math and computer science from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard, and is fluent in eight programming languages.

David Linthicum is an internationally known cloud computing and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) expert. In his career, Dave has formed or enhanced many of the ideas behind modern distributed computing including EAI, B2B Application Integration, and SOA, approaches and technologies in wide use today. For the last 10 years, Dave has focused on the technology and strategies around cloud computing, including working with several cloud computing startups. Dave’s industry experience includes tenure as CTO and CEO of several successful software companies, and upper-level management positions in Fortune 500 companies.

Dave focuses on best practices and the real business value of cloud computing, as well as the true fit of the technology within the context of enterprise requirements. His expertise lies in his ability to define where the business meets Cloud computing using familiar tools and understandable terminology.

In addition, Dave was an associate professor of computer science for eight years, and continues to lecture at major technical colleges and universities including the University of Virginia, Arizona State University, and the University of Wisconsin. Dave keynotes at many leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, Web 2.0, and enterprise architecture, and has appeared on a number of TV and radio shows as a computing expert.

Dr. Richard Mark Soley is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for OMG. As Chairman and CEO, Dr. Soley is responsible for the vision and direction of the world's largest consortium of its type. Dr. Soley joined the nascent OMG as Technical Director in 1989, leading the development of OMG's world-leading standardization process and the original CORBA® specification. In 1996, he led the effort to move into vertical market standards (starting with healthcare, finance, telecommunications and manufacturing) and modeling, leading first to the Unified Modeling Language (UML®) and later the Model Driven Architecture (MDA®).

Previously, Dr. Soley was a cofounder and former Chairman/CEO of A. I. Architects, Inc., maker of the 386 HummingBoard and other PC and workstation hardware and software. Prior to that, he consulted for various technology companies and venture firms on matters pertaining to software investment opportunities.
Dr. Soley has also consulted for IBM, Motorola, PictureTel, Texas Instruments, Gold Hill Computer and others. He began his professional life at Honeywell Computer Systems working on the Multics operating system.

A native of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., Dr. Soley holds the bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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