Advasco had initial success with their Customer Information Service and then opened the flood gates for development by the rest of the organization. These efforts were successfully reigned in by the newly formed SOA Center of Excellence. Now, the team at Advasco faces a new challenge: modifying an existing service to handle the needs of a new consumer. This chapter will go over the challenges faced by the team and then present guidance for handling this situation within your own organization.

Making a Change

For the next few months, the Center of Excellence paid off. Projects were identifying services early in the lifecycle. Those same projects were successfully identifying other potential consumers of these new services. Implementation technologies were being chosen correctly and interface design was being properly done. Most importantly, everyone felt the SOA effort was on track.

By this time, it had been almost two years since Spencer's team developed the Customer Information Service for the auto insurance and home insurance divisions. While these two groups were very happy with the results, no additional teams had leveraged it. Outside of the annuity project, this wasn't a case of projects going in another direction; it was more due to lack of opportunities. That was about to change.

Spencer was eating lunch in the cafeteria when Ramesh walked up. "Mind if I join you, Spencer?"

"Hey Ramesh, it's been quite some time. Go ahead and pull up a chair."

"Do you remember two years ago you tried to convince Ryan to use your Customer Information Service?"

"I sure do. I didn't want to show my face in the annuity area for about a month after that. He really wasn't very receptive to the idea."

"Well, I have some good news and some better news for you. The good news is that about six months later, Ryan decided to leave Advasco. The better news is that we've now got a major initiative to revamp a number of our systems in the annuity department. I'd like to take advantage of the Customer Information Service as part of that effort."

"That's good news Ramesh. I didn't harbor any resentment towards Ryan, but I'm certainly happy about having another potential consumer for the Customer Information Service. I'll put you in touch with the service manager for it."

"Thanks Spencer. That would be great. We're just getting started on our architecture, so the timing is perfect."

"Let me know if you run into any problems. I'm still part of the SOA Center of Excellence, so it's still my job to make sure it goes well!"

Spencer put Ramesh in contact with the service manager for the Customer Information Service, Maria. Maria had recently transferred over after her work on the account maintenance effort, and now had responsibilities for the Customer Information Service. In the meeting with Ramesh, she brought her technical lead, Craig, with her.

"Spencer told me that you're interested in utilizing the Customer Information Service in some of the new systems you're building in the annuity department, Ramesh."

"That's right. We're rewriting a number of our systems, and based on what I remembered from Spencer two years ago, I thought we might be able to leverage the service."

"Great, I'd be happy to help you out. This is Craig, the technical lead who covers the Customer Information Service. He's here if you've got any technical questions. Have you had a chance to review the information available in the service repository?"

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