Enterprise architecture: Not good enough for utilities?

By Jesse Berst

According to popular wisdom, electric power utilities need to switch to the enterprise architecture that is the cornerstone in virtually all other industries. At the core is a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that makes it easy to mix-and-match applications without "hard-wiring" each one to all of the others. And at the heart of the SOA is an enterprise service bus (ESB) to handle the messaging.

In his recent smart enterprise series for Smart Grid News, GTM Research senior analyst Chet Geshickter hints that SOA and ESB may not be up to the task for electric power. The fear is that the volumes of data and the message spikes during outages could bring it crashing down.

My take: SOA is used in many industries with message volumes greatly exceeding those of electric power, such as financial clearing and stock markets. But I'm not a computing expert. For opinions pro and con, jump to the Smart Grid News discussion forum. (And do it before you spend another dime on information technology.)

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Jesse Berst is the founder and chief analyst of Smart Grid News.com. He consults to smart grid companies seeking market entry advice and M&A advisory. A frequent keynoter at industry events in the US and abroad, he also serves on the Advisory Council of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Energy & Environment directorate.