52 percent of IT professionals are unaware of the risks associated with implementing a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) system and certification solution company, according to research out today from AppLabs. SOA has been earmarked in the industry as a development in the bid to unite business and technology.

This statistic is worrying in light of the fact that according to the analyst community, SOA will be used in more than half of new mission-critical operational applications and business processes designed in the next 12 months. With the high business risk associated with SOA, the likelihood of a system breakdown is high.

The research, which sampled over 50 IT professionals from Fortune 500 companies, shows that 19 percent of IT professionals do not know how to approach quality management and testing in an SOA environment. With a further five percent saying they would test SOA in the same way as other IT systems, IT professionals need to be educated on the risks associated with SOA and ensure sufficient resource is invested in testing.

The survey also found that 35 percent of IT professionals questioned are concerned about the risks involved in implementing SOA, while a further six percent said that they do not believe the benefits of SOA will outweigh the risks involved.

Other research results include:

• Over 70 percent of IT professionals said their main reasons for adopting SOA include: internal IT integration, reaching new channels of the marketplace and third party integration
• 43 percent of IT professionals confirmed they are in initial planning stages of SOA
• 16 percent of IT professionals intend to outsource quality management and testing when implementing SOA

Graham Smith, Head of Client Engagement, AppLabs Europe said: “The nature of SOA implementation is extremely complex and traditional approaches to testing are insufficient. Risk increases exponentially in an SOA environment and organisations need to ensure they implement the right quality assurance and testing strategies from the outset to ensure their SOA system meets all business objectives and goes live problem free.”

“While 38% of organizations are already on track with their SOA implementation, 43% are still in the planning stage. The results clearly indicate the adoption of SOA for both technology and business reasons. As experts in SOA implementation, we look forward to working with these organizations to help them seamlessly adopt SOA as an integral part of their IT landscape” added Doc Parghi, Senior Vice President, AppLabs USA.

For more information on AppLabs contact Toby Brown toby.brown@buffalo.co.uk at Buffalo Communications.