Service Oriented Archiecture (SOA) helps create greater alignment between IT and line of business while generating more flexibility - IT flexibility to support greater business flexibility. Your business processes are changing faster and faster and global competition requires the flexibility that SOA can provide. SOA can help you get better reuse out of your existing IT investments as well as the new services you're developing today. SOA makes integration of your IT investments easier by making use of well-defined interfaces between services. SOA also provides an architectural model for integrating business partners', customers' and suppliers' services into an enterprise's business processes. This reduces cost and improves customer satisfaction. Finally, SOA reduces business risk and exposure by helping you comply with legislation and regulations, such as (in the United States) Sarbanes-Oxley, the US Patriot Act, etc.

SOA views everything as a 'service' that is packaged to be flexible and reusable by being abstracted from underlying technology changes. Services can range from component pieces of code at the programming model level, applications that need to be integrated or to business processes that can orchestrate your assets for competitive advantage.

There are many ways to get started with SOA, with the IBM SOA Foundation - an integrated, open-standards-based set of software, best practices and patterns for Service Oriented Architecture. IBM SOA Foundation helps to extend the value of the applications and business processes that currently run your business, not replace them. IBM SOA Foundation is interoperable and fully modular - allowing you to select components on a build-as-you-go basis by adding components as new requirements need to be addressed. And because IBM SOA Foundation is scalable, you can start small and grow as fast as the business requires. IBM SOA Foundation also provides extensive support for business and IT standards to facilitate greater interoperability and portability between applications.

• IBM SOA Reference Architecture
• News and Announcements
• Sites of Interest
• Business and Technical Library
• Case Studies
• Events
• Blogs and Forums

• FREE TUTORIAL: Introducing "Project Zero" - IBM's incubator project
  REST (REpresentational State Transfer) is neither a technology nor a standard; it's an architectural style for exposing resources over the Web. These resources can then be mixed and matched to build new applications, often called mashups.
  
  In this first installment in the Project Zero series, you are introduced to the community-driven Project Zero and its conventions for creating, assembling, and executing RESTful Web services. Using a step-by-step example, you'll set up the environment, create a Zero project, build a RESTful service to expose data, test your application, and import a sample application to consume the RESTful services.
• Free The eyes and ears of SOA and WebSphere: IBM WebSphere TV
  Your online connection to the IBM visionaries and resources making the promise of Service Oriented Architecture, or SOA, a reality for businesses around the world. This is your chance to hear not just from your IBM representative but from other customers and business partners like you, reaping the value of SOA.
  
  WebSphere TV is not just a video collection; it's online TV for the 21st century!
  Take advantage of the interactive screen and remote...
  • TV News: Watch the latest news from IBM and IT market visionaries on SOA plus weekly imbedded animated "offertisements" help you stay "in tune" with the top WebSphere resources available such as upcoming webcasts, whitepapers, web kits, etc...
  • Related resources: Learn more through related materials available next to each video or animation
  • Email this video: Share a specific video or animation with your team or manager for your next innovation-related discussion
  • XML RSS feed: Keep up with the latest programming via live bookmarking
  See what's playing this week on WebSphere TV: http://www.ibm.com/software/info/television/websphere
• Free "SOA for Dummies" book
  Every water cooler you've walked by, someone is talking about Service Oriented Architecture. You've heard that it's the most important initiative facing IT today, but you don't really understand why. Are you ready to be the resident expert on the topic? Well... maybe expert is too strong a word.
  We know you're no dummy, but it helps to have someone explain something not-so-simple in an oh-so-simple way. A team of well-respected authors have written "SOA for Dummies", and we asked them create a special IBM Edition. It covers what SOA is, why it matters, how it can impact businesses, how to get started with SOA, and what one IBM customer has done with SOA. The rest of the world has to wait until October - but you can order and get your free copy today! (Limit: one per person)

• Couldn't make it to the WebSphere Live for SOA or SOA Executive Summit? Watch the video here:
  • WebSphere Live for SOA
  • SOA Executive Summit
• If you are uncertain about your readiness to progress to SOA, we invite you to take our free SOA readiness assessmentService Oriented Architecture (SOA).
• SOA is about flexibility. Start at a point that addresses your immediate need with one of 5 Entry points for SOA.
• Here are some frequently asked questions (FAQs) to help you understand more about SOA.
• WebSphere Business Process Management Tech Zone
• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) - Learn about IBM's comprehensive SOA capabilities; products, services, partners, education and upcoming events.
• developerWorks
  • SOA and Web Services
  • Architecture - SOA information for the Architect; requirements analysis, modeling, assets and patterns, integration and sample projects.
  • WebSphere Technical Podcast series - Focus on driving skills and adoption of SOA.
  • WebSphere Integration Developer (WID) Roadmap - Prerequisite skills, product overview, installation, migrating, developing and troubleshooting.
• alphaWorks SOA and Web Services
• Communities
  • EI-CHOICES eCommunity - Collaborate with ERP users on SOA integration solutions.
  • Rational Software Global User Group Community - Collaborate with Rational users.
  • Tivoli Software Global User Group Community - Collaborate with Tivoli software users.
  • GWC WebSphere Technology Zone: Business Integration - Learn about WebSphere Business Integration solutions
  • WebSphere SOA Business Partner Community - Adopting SOA represents a tremendous opportunity for IBM Business Partners to significantly improve flexibility, raise client satisfaction, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), and increase ease of integration and sales opportunities.
  • Web Services Interoperability Organization - WS-I delivers practical guidance, best practices and resources for developing interoperable Web services solutions.
  • IT Governance Institute - The IT Governance Institute (ITGI) exists to assist enterprise leaders in their responsibility to ensure that IT is aligned with the business and delivers value, its performance is measured, its resources properly allocated and its risks mitigated.
  • Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) - a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards.
  • Object Management Group (OMG) - an open membership, not-for-profit consortium that produces and maintains computer industry specifications for interoperable enterprise applications.

• Ten steps to SOA success
  Unsure about starting an SOA project? Follow these ten steps from Sandy Carter, IBM Vice President for SOA and WebSphere strategy, and you'll be on your way to success.
• Role-based skills roadmaps: Service Oriented architecture
  Define your path to acquire skills for specific WebSphere product offerings with role-based skills roadmaps for SOA. These roadmaps are based on skills required for specific job roles and present educational opportunities that are most relevant to your actual job requirements. Base technology prerequisites are documented, enabling you to embark on your skills-building effort with a solid foundation. Courses and other applicable learning options are detailed so you can designed a program to build your skills. The SOA roles are:
  Service-Oriented Architect: The service-oriented architect is expected to articulate business and technical values of service-oriented architecture (SOA), help determine return on investment, be familiar with new industry standards, design patterns, and be able to craft service-oriented architecture solutions using existing assets and new components.
  Service-Oriented Architecture Foundation: Find ways to increase the flexibility of your business processes, strengthen underlying IT infrastructure, and retain and reuse existing assets with (SOA) from IBM. It provides a flexible, robust infrastructure to model, assemble, deploy and manage business processes for today's on demand business environment.
• Redbook: Patterns:Implementing an SOA Using and Enterprise Service Bus
• IBM Press: Service-Oriented Architecture Compass: Business Value, Planning, and Enterprise Roadmap - Written by IBM's leading experts in the field that covers SOA business considerations, governance and architecture.
• IBM Systems Journal: Service Oriented Architecture Issue - IBM thought leadership writes 12 papers covering; business aspects of service-oriented thinking, developing service-oriented architecture solutions, elements of service-oriented architecture infrastructure and formal methods.
• Insight and Outlook: Why and when should you choose SOA? - Tune in to the insight and outlook of IBM visionaries and leading technical practitioners as they comment on issues facing IT architects today and in the future.
• Online Lecture: IBM WebSphere Software - Service Oriented Architecture: A New Model for Engagement - Listen to Jason Weisser and Kerrie Holley of IBM explaining the basics of SOA, the lessons they learned, and why customers adopt this approach for their future IT.
• Architecture and Governance Magazine - Articles from industry experts with focus on IT Governance and Enterprise.
• CBDI Report: Service Oriented Architecture: An Introduction for Managers
• CBDI Report: Web Services Roadmap for the On Demand Business
• CBDI Report: Modernizing Enterprise Application Integration with Service Oriented Architecture
• AMR Research Report: Service-Oriented Architectures: Survey Findings on Deployment and Plans for the Future
• WebSphere Developer Technical Journal: Get started with WebSphere Integration Developer - Learn how to use WebSphere Integration Developer V6 by creating a business process, business state machine, and Java™ component for a simple application that uses a services-oriented architecture.
• WebSphere Developer Technical Journal: Building SOA solutions with the Service Component Architecture - From these two articles, learn about the new programming model designed specifically for building and assembling business solutions in an SOA, and targeted for integrating and composing services.
• WebSphere Developer Technical Journal: Looking back and looking ahead at ESB technology - An eight part series on building an enterprise services bus with WAS v6.
• Cross Brand: Best practices for using the thirteen capabilities of the IBM On Demand Operating Environment - Design, develop and manage an ESB with WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli, Lotus and DB2 On Demand Operating Environment.

• Standard Life's SOA Increases Reuse and Cuts Costs Significantly
• Xerox's Enterprise Service Bus Reduces Deployment Costs and Time to Market
• Charles Schwab Responds to Market Conditions and Customer Needs with SOA

• Check out the upcoming SOA related events on the GWC Events page. These events include:
  • IBM SOA Executive Summits
  • SOA Architecture Summits
  • WebSphere Live for SOA seminars

• WebSphere SOA forum
• SOA Foundation Products