SAP's entrance into the business process outsourcing (BPO) market marks a major turning point in the outsourcing industry, according to market researcher Yankee Group. SAP's ERP model of the 1990s is finally transforming to adapt to the growth in outsourced services, with human resources at its center. Yankee Group says the HR BPO market is growing wildly and forecasts revenues will grow to $14 billion by 2009, up from $4.6 billion this year.
Tricky security requirements and a lack of clear-cut standards make exposing applications as Web services a high-wire act.
Information silos have generated massive amounts of information that may not be easily accessible. SOA can change that.
Many IT shops are looking to service-oriented architectures as a way to build a unified, standards-based framework that would enable disparate systems to seamlessly interoperate. To do that requires an SOA governance architecture or framework, which manages the services and policies of the SOA and gives IT visibility into the SOA’s inner workings.
If a service-oriented enterprise architecture can build an IT model of your business data and practices, then you can optimize those business processes. That''s where the money is.
Until recently, most IT managers have focused on deploying service-oriented architectures on transaction systems and production apps, but now, some managers are exploring how to apply SOAs to the data warehouse and activities like business intelligence and business analytics.
An SOA linked to a data warehouse can reduce costs, speed access to information and ultimately increase revenue.
True Web services collaboration within the framework of a service-oriented architecture is as tantalizing as an oasis in the desert, but without standards, it's still only a mirage.
Enterprise Application Integration Using .NET shows you how to overcome the issues and obstacles involved in integrating enterprise-scale applications successfully.
Web services are supposed to work together to make life easier. Yet they only work well together if they're designed properly. WebLayers in Cambridge, Mass., has introduced an enterprise software tool to aid in effective governance of XML, Web services and SOA to ensure interoperability.
Enterprises are increasingly turning to service oriented architectures (SOAs), both to exploit SOA's potential for eliminating redundancies and accelerating project delivery though the consolidation and reuse of Web services, and as a means of streamlining business processes among departments and organizations.
Although the enterprise service bus, or ESB, has only really become a product category recently, the term is getting plenty of mention lately. With the convergence of ubiquitous Web services and an IT focus on reuse and cost cutting, it's a good time for vendors with ESB products.
Sonic Software was one of the first to market with an enterprise service bus (ESB) product. Now the company is nicely positioned to take advantage of that early lead, as more and more companies move to adopt initiatives around Web services and service-oriented architectures (SOAs), with their promises of lower costs and non-proprietary solutions.
Ari Bixhorn discusses Microsoft's plan to create a unified programming model (code-named Indigo) for building distributed, interconnected apps in an interview with VSM Editor in Chief Patrick Meader.