IT organisations are adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology to connect, realign, and create business processes that reduce costs, improve usability, and respond quickly to change.

According to a recent Gartner report, "the use of SOA is accelerating in response to the growing need to more frequently change business processes, products, and services. SOA was used, to some extent, in more than 50% of large, new applications and business processes designed in 2007."*

With SOA-enabled software and services from SAP and our partners, companies are:

• Improving efficiency by establishing end-to-end business processes with centrally managed integration and lower total cost of ownership
• Creating and enhancing applications that meet business and user requirements faster for increased process efficiency and business insight
• Increasing business and IT flexibility with SAP's approach for easier and faster SOA adoption

Improve Efficiency with Cost-Effective End-To-End Process Integration

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration provides the ability to implement a SOA backbone based on open standards, such as standards-based XML and Web services messaging. You can leverage more than 250 adapter and content packages from SAP and our partners – such as iWay and Seeburger – to support application-to-application and business-to-business integration across SAP and non-SAP applications.

Increase Flexibility with SOA

For greater flexibility, service-enabled SAP Business Suite – powered by SAP NetWeaver – enables you to adopt SOA at your own pace and with minimised risk and cost. For this, SAP Business Suite delivers thousands of enterprise services via enhancement packages. SAP NetWeaver gives you the technical backbone of your architecture by delivering an enterprise service repository.

In addition, you can define an enterprise architecture strategy and establish a governance policy for your SOA landscape by working with SAP's subject-matter experts.

Compose Applications that Address Business Needs

SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment provides an integrated set of tools that help you compose applications, including appealing user interfaces, dynamic business logic, reusable enterprise services, and data access code. This integrated environment supports model-driven composition for faster business process adaptations.

The SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management component provides business and IT specialists with a shared environment to design, model, and execute new or adapted business processes without having to write code. It enables clearly defined business rules to be incorporated into processes. This is achieved through tight integration with the SAP NetWeaver Business Rules Management component – enabling business user with no coding skills to create and modify rules via rule representation formats.

SAP Enterprise Modeling Applications by IDS Scheer supports process analysis, governance, and standardisation – stabilizing business processes implemented with SAP business applications.

To ensure your success, SAP Custom Development and the SAP Developer Network community are there to help, providing you with valuable services and insight.

*Service-Oriented Architecture Overview and Guide to SOA Research, Gartner Report, Charles Abrams and Roy Schulte, January 2008.