IBM cuts ribbon on SOA institute

IBM Corp. has launched a service-oriented architecture center devoted to helping federal agencies adopt and benefit from SOA information technology initiatives.

The announcement was made last week during IBM's Federal SOA Executive Summit at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The IBM Federal SOA Institute is focused on three important mandates: innovation, solution development and testing, and education, company officials said.

SOA allows organizations' to more closely align IT technology with business goals. They can loosely link various software-based services using middleware technology to provide business applications. By doing so, organizations gain greater efficiencies, cost savings and enhanced flexibility to meet changing business needs.

The IBM Federal SOA Institute includes dedicated technology and consulting resources to support federal organizations, and those serving this specialized community. A key goal of the institute will be to spur innovation by cultivating collaboration among IBM researchers, universities and federal agencies, IBM officials said.

"We believe this first-of-a-kind center will help federal agencies identify new ways to build and utilize IT systems, quickly improve and reuse legacy systems and reduce overall application development, operations and management," said Anne Altman, managing director of IBM's U.S. federal business.

The institute has a working lab in which SOA methodologies and technologies are being designed, tested and demonstrated specifically for federal environments. The lab also is assisting with customer-related pilots and serving as a central location to collect reusable technology assets and best practices that can accelerate customer acceptance. The institute has launched a speaker series for senior level customers and technology partners on topics such as SOA governance, service oriented modeling, security and reuse of legacy assets in an SOA.

The SOA Institute is located in Bethesda, Md. In addition to the institute. IBM of Armonk, New York, has about 336,000 employees and had annual sales of $91.4 billion in 2006.

The company ranks No. 17 on Washington Technology's 2006 Top 100 list of the largest federal IT contractors. The 2007 Top 100 list is due out May 14.

Rutrell Yasin writes for Government Computer News, an 1105 Government Information Group publication.