IBM Opens First SOA Institute for U.S. Federal Organizations

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the first Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) center devoted solely to helping U.S. Federal agencies adopt and benefit from SOA Information Technology (IT) initiatives. The IBM Federal SOA Institute is focused on three important mandates -- innovation, solution development and testing, and education.

SOA is a way of architecting an organization’s IT technology to more closely align with business goals. By doing so, organizations gain greater efficiencies, cost savings and enhanced flexibility to meet changing business needs. At the Federal level, SOA initiatives have taken on greater urgency as agencies face budget constraints, security concerns and aging IT systems.

“As the leading SOA technology and services provider, IBM is uniquely able to combine our extensive knowledge in delivering IT systems to federal agencies with deep expertise in integrated, open-standards-based technologies,” said Anne K. Altman, Managing Director of IBM’s U.S. Federal business. “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.”

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. In the institute’s working lab, SOA methodologies and technologies are being designed, tested and demonstrated specifically for Federal environments. The lab is also assisting with customer-related pilots, and serving as a central location to collect reusable technology assets and best practices that can accelerate customer acceptance. As part of the educational mission, 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. In the future, practitioner level briefings will be organized to exchange ideas from both the public and private sector.

The IBM Federal SOA Institute is part of a long term commitment by IBM to the Federal community, which includes significant investments in software, hardware, research and services. IBM has more than 80 distinguished engineers and architects dedicated to helping solve the unique IT challenges of federal government agencies In addition to the institute, IBM has two Federally focused Competency Centers in the Washington, DC region that offer organizations the opportunity to learn and test new IBM and Federal Systems Integrator (FSI) capabilities that large and small organizations can use to address Financial Management, Human Capital Management, Collaboration, and Supply Chain requirements.

The announcement regarding the new institute was made during IBM’s Federal SOA Executive Summit at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC.

With more than 3,500 SOA-focused client engagements, 3,600 business partners, and 7,500 certified consultants, architects, and IT specialists, IBM is the leading SOA technology and services provider. The institute is part of IBM’s global network of centers -- serving as focal points to harness SOA skills and expertise.