Initial success with a service-oriented architecture (SOA) pilot project does not necessarily mean it will easily scale up to an enterprise implementation, IBM has found based on the experiences of its 5,700 SOA customers.

"What we've been finding is clients may do very well with a successful pilot, but may wind up having problems as they go from pilot to full production," said Marie Wieck, vice president for middleware services at IBM Global Technology Services. To address this problem, IBM is borrowing terminology from the medical and fitness industries in announcing SOA Healthcheck Services.