In summary:
§ Real case studies & customer references
§ SOA vision & demonstration of understanding of SOA concepts
§ Positioning of the vendors offering within an SOI
o technically
o from a business perspective
o commercially
§ What partnerships does the vendor have for integration (proven) or delivery?
§ What pricing/licensing models does the vendor have?
§ What service and support offerings does the vendor have?
In full:
Most vendors can talk SOA; usually from their own viewpoint and with their products at the centre of the “SOA universe”. What most vendors will struggle with is demonstrating or providing real-world examples of how their products work within an SOI, and explaining the non-technical (i.e. business and commercial) impacts and requirements of using their products.
Once the vendors’ credentials are proven they need to prove that they understand SOA at the various levels that may impact the customer. This means an understanding of the technical AND business impacts of SOA, strategies and best practises for implementation. For example, does the product require new roles to be created for management? Do these roles sit in parallel with another component of the customers SOA? This understanding is crucial at the pre-sales stage.
Following on from this last point the vendor needs to carefully position their product. For example, if the customer has already got an ESB component and the vendors product can provide some of an ESB's functionality they should be extolling their unique value rather than a breadth of functionality. The vendor should also be able to explain where other components with the customers SOA can be enhanced through their offering. Alternatively if the customers SOA is at a vendor selection phase then this can be an opportunity to instil the benefits that the vendors product can bring if it can be positioned in more that a single place within the planned SOA.
Positioning of the product may need to be done at a number of levels.
Firstly the technical positioning; this will involve issues such as hardware & platform support, standards being used, performance needs, integration techniques.
From a business perspective you might hear the following questions:
§ How easy is it for the business to interact with the product? (Assuming it has a business friendly purpose)
§ What roles does it use or introduce? Can you provide the training we need?
§ What value will it give us? How can we monitor this value?
§ How easy will it be to make changes driven by the business? Can business make these changes or will we require IT?
And finally from a commercial perspective the customer may want to know about partnerships that the vendor has for integration or delivery of their product (there may be a leading SI within the customer, managing the SOA for example). Also what pricing/licensing models does the vendor supply, and how flexible are these? And finally what service and support offerings does the vendor have? If the vendor only supplies 24x5 and the other components within the SOA are 24x7 what is the operational risk?
© Ben Walshaw 2007
