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The SOA Foundation outlines the logical steps to implement SOA. Each step represents an integrated, open set of software, best practices, and patterns that provide what you need to get started with SOA. As a Business Partner who delivers consulting, services, or software applications, you can leverage the SOA Foundation to deliver the value of SOA to your own or your customers' environment.
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IBM has carefully selected the software that makes up the SOA Foundation from the broader IBM software portfolio to support each stage of the SOA lifecycle. As you become knowledgeable in the suite of IBM SOA software products, you can broaden your reach to new and existing customers to help them gain the benefits of SOA.
Model
The model phase starts by gathering and analyzing business requirements which are then used to model, simulate, and optimize your business process. During this phase of the process, the model establishes a common understanding of the business processes, objectives, and outcomes between business and IT.
The model also ensures that the design will result in an application that meets the defined business requirements, and it provides a baseline from which to measure the performance of the business.
Assemble
During the assemble phase, you can create services out of existing assets such as ERP and financial systems, CICS applications, and other solutions that are currently running your business. If no functionality exists, you may create and test a service to deliver the functionality required for your business process. Once the required services are available, you can orchestrate the services to implement your business process.
Deploy
During the deployment phase, you can configure and scale the runtime environment to meet the service levels required by your business process. You can optimize the services environment to reliably run mission-critical business processes while providing the flexibility to make updates dynamically in response to changing business requirements.
Once configured, you can deploy your business process into a robust, scaleable, and secure services environment. This service-oriented approach can reduce the cost and complexity associated with maintaining numerous point-to-point integrations.
Manage
The manage phase involves managing the underlying service assets, establishing and maintaining service availability and response times, and managing and maintaining version control over the services that make up your business processes. The management phase ultimately enables you to make better business decisions sooner than previously possible.
You can monitor key performance indicators in real time to get the information required to prevent, isolate, diagnose, and fix problems, enabling you to provide feedback into the business process model to enable continuous improvement.
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A cornerstone of successful SOA projects, governance means adhering to tried and true methods and best practices rather than guesswork or haphazard trial-and-error. SOA governance sets up the policies, procedures, and processes that are needed to provide for efficient and effective decision making throughout the organization.
After establishing the governance process, you can execute and enforce it across the service development lifecycle. As a Business Partner leveraging the governance tools available from IBM, you can assist your customers in this important aspect of implementing SOA.
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