Service Oriented Architecture - SOA

Rapid reuse of existing assets and sharing of services and infrastructure across lines of business are critical to achieving business processes that can adjust to changing market conditions. A service oriented architecture (SOA) is your key to making the IT department a catalyst for growth and innovation.

Flexibility in business has become equal in importance with operational efficiency. While the drivers of change manifest themselves differently in each industry, a common theme is emerging across all industries: those that adjust to change more quickly gain a competitive advantage.

What are some of the market forces leading your industry toward SOA?

Studies from Gartner, IDC, and leading business consultants all point to a common message: companies are spending too much money on integration and the sustaining and running of existing business capability versus innovation and creation of new capability. Companies want this to change. And they know this is possible with SOA.

A service oriented architecture structures the functions delivered in large applications into reusable building blocks, or "services" that can be used to enable your IT environment to be more nimble, to respond rapidly to changing business conditions. Enterprises are using SOA as a way of increasing business flexibility, serving their customers better, leveraging existing IT investments, and capturing new revenue streams. The market shifts; your business responds and wins with SOA.

The promise of SOA and Web services initiatives is enormous. However, navigating the planning, implementation, and management landscape without adequate experience and expertise can be difficult and expensive. Creating, implementing, and deploying a security-rich SOA environment in an incremental, self-funding manner requires hands-on experience and enterprise-proven software. Companies need a partner they can trust, one that deeply understands their specific industry and has extensive real-world SOA experience. In other words, these businesses need IBM.

IBM, the acknowledged SOA leader, can help you:

• Understand how an SOA can help you meet your business goals
• Create a detailed SOA plan
• Implement the plan with integrated, best-of-breed IT products
• Ensure that your SOA is meeting business needs and performance requirements

Regardless of where you are in the SOA adoption process or what your future SOA plans may entail, IBM can help you incrementally implement an SOA solution that can help show return on investment at each stage. IBM has the proven SOA experience, the right software and services, and the deep understanding of your business you demand when selecting an IT provider.

How do I get started...

Read about SOA and its business value:

• Changing the way industries work: The impacts of service oriented architecture (US)
• Service oriented architecture: A practical guide to measuring return on that investment (US)
• Blueprint for supply chain visibility: Service oriented architecture (US)

Consider IBM® Component Business Modeling® (US).
We start with a complete model of the essential business processes in your industry, using it to identify differentiating and non-differentiating components and isolate those presenting immediate opportunities for growth, innovation or improvement.