A survey of SOA migration in industry

Abstract

Migration of legacy software to service-based systems is an increasingly important problem area. So far, many SOA migration approaches have been proposed in both industry and academia. There is, however, considerable difference between SOA migration approaches defined in academia and those emerged in industry. This difference pinpoints a potential gap between theory and practice. To bridge this gap, we conducted an industrial interview survey in seven leading SOA solution provider companies. Results have been analyzed with respect to migration activities, the available knowledge assets and the migration process. In addition, industrial approaches have been contrasted with academic ones, hence discussing differences and promising directions for industry-relevant research. As a result we found that, in fact, all companies converge to the same, one, common SOA migration approach. This suggests that, with experience, enterprises mature toward a similar approach to SOA migration. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.