Innovation requires changing and adapting with speed. But organisations are only as flexible and responsive as the IT systems which support them. According to IBM's 2006 Global CEO Study (AU), 78 percent of CEOs believe integrating business and technology is fundamental for innovation. Too often, businesses discover that their ability to innovate is hampered by inflexible IT systems that are difficult, expensive and time-consuming to change.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is rapidly changing the way we think about how to build enterprise IT systems. SOA breaks IT into flexible "services" - repeatable business tasks such as "check customer credit" or "open new account". These services can be combined, configured and reused to address changing business priorities, creating a flexible IT infrastructure that enables the enterprise to adapt with speed and agility. According to IDC, the SOA market is expected to reach $21 billion by 2007.

By presenting applications, information and other IT assets as loosely- coupled services or "building blocks" supporting specific business needs, SOA reconnects technology to business outcomes. SOA simplifies and accelerates the deployment of new business applications. It also lowers costs by meeting new needs with existing resources. According to the Aberdeen Group, the world's largest companies can save up to $53 billion in IT spending over the next five years by adopting SOA.

Model, assemble, deploy, manage, govern
In IBM's experience, companies think about SOA in terms of a life cycle. This life cycle starts with a model phase, in which business requirements are gathered and analysed to simulate and improve business tasks. Next comes an assemble phase, in which businesses create services out of new and existing IT assets, and put them together to deliver the business process.

After creating reusable services, companies deploy the business process into a robust, scalable and secure services environment. Finally, they manage and monitor the performance of these business processes, both from an IT perspective and a business perspective, feeding intelligence gathered back into the SOA lifecycle to enable continuous process improvement. Underpinning the success of this life cycle is robust project governance.

Where to start
Because SOA embraces a new way of thinking about enterprise IT and a new set of methods for building IT systems, locating the right starting point can appear confusing. To help our clients with this task, IBM commissioned a study of over 1,900 businesses. This research illuminated three SOA business starting points, people, processes and information - and two SOA IT starting points, reuse and connectivity.

For more information about IBM

• Visit the IBM virtual exhibit in the System/App Integration Pavilion
• Visit the System/App. Integration Research Pavilion

September 2006