One business unit, for example, developed an “equity desktop” application in 90 days that traditionally would have taken six to 12 months to design and build from scratch, Bishop recalls. “They reused our desktop and server frameworks and dropped them on the product runtime utility environment so they didn’t have to worry about how it would be managed and supported,” he explains. “On the server they defined workflow rules, SLAs, and user priorities -- whether it needed to run on high- or low-cost infrastructure—and then did the data mapping.”

Another business group, Foreign Exchange, built and exposed a componentized foreign exchange calculator application, Bishop recalls, which was later reused by a completely separate division, International Payments and Trade.

“This is going to be an ongoing lifecycle,” Bishops predicts. “As more and more services and components come on, and the better job we do educating, people will go, ‘“Why would I even bother wasting any more time when I can just use the new stuff, build it better, it’s dynamic and just works right?’ That will be the measure of success.”

The self-monitoring SOA
A central feature of the Corporate and Investment Bank’s services-oriented platform is its focus on measuring and managing usage and performance like a utility, Bishop explains. “This is a franchise; we’re making it repeatable and scalable. You get your burgers, fries, and Coke every single time. You plug it in and it works.”

In addition to managing services contracts and making sure they get fulfilled (“guaranteed execution”), the system tracks runtime usage—how many processes and transactions went across, and on top of which components and services. “We want to know: What was the efficiency contribution?” Bishop asks. “Were 100 person-days reused? Who’s consuming and how are they consuming? ... Like a CFO would look at it.”

Also, CIB’s portfolio management tool ties component contributions and reuse to the MBO (Management by Objectives) metrics of the business unit developers and system leaders.

So far, according to CIO Certoma, the $100 million-plus, per-year investment appears to be paying off. “After they saw our execution last year, they doubled our budget this year,” she says. “And there’s never endless money—that means they had to be conservative in other areas.”

Certoma points to such successes as three multimillion dollar contracts won recently by CIB’s global financial institutions group, where a key selling point was the bank’s superior technology architecture. “That business is a servicing business; we provide financing for import/export,” she explains. “Our technology becomes visible on the client’s desktop and takes out a lot of the manual reconciliation work. When they see how our technology provides integration and interfaces across their disparate systems, that’s a huge win, because it makes their processes cleaner and error-free.”

Certoma is quick to add that deploying an enterprise-wide SOA in a multibillion dollar company accustomed to siloed development is rarely a picnic. “It’s like a rollercoaster,” she says. “You go up and down, throw up a couple times, and at the end of the ride, everything’s great.”

Working to overcome mistrust is one key lesson learned, Certoma says. “You have to have an unwavering commitment to your vision, because it will get hard,” she explains. “Getting the business groups to trust another group to build something for them— it was not seamless, it was not smooth. You have to stick it out.”

Relentless communication with the business is also crucial, Certoma adds. “We went to the business and told them exactly what they’d need if they wanted to be an A-player and what we were doing to get there ... no secrets. We have to sell and market this every day.”

Also, Certoma adds, the technology team has to understand the business deeply to have credibility. “If the technologist can say, ‘Have you thought about trading this way, because then you can make this kind of money, and I can give you these tools to do that?,’ that’s where the magic happens.” Certoma notes that she herself sits on the trading floor in New York, rather than in an office. “I’m always on the floor.”

As with any initiative, it all comes down to delivering on your promises. With SOA, that also means defining and meeting realistic interim goals. “An SOA is not a six-month type of effort, but you have to deliver something every couple of months,” Certoma says. “This type of business can’t sustain waiting for a year or two to get solutions. We have short term deliverables that are pushing us all the time.”