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Academic Initiative > Skills for the 21st century >
Service Oriented Architecture
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Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural approach for integrating and linking
repeatable business tasks or services that are well-defined, self-contained functions. Because services are independent
of the applications or computing platform on which they run, as well as the context or state of other tasks or services,
SOAs are becoming the main approach for dealing with the interoperability of systems in heterogeneous environments.
When an SOA is built on open standards, such as Web services, business services can be quickly and easily connected.
This enables SOA benefits to span enterprises. For example, an enterprise could expose some of its services
for business partners to integrate into a business process, such as a supply chain. From a business point of view,
SOA is a way of reusing a company's existing applications and other IT investments in new, more flexible ways
for greater efficiency, cost savings, and productivity. |
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Heterogeneous IT environments are very common in the modern business world and keeping costs to a minimum
is always a concern. And now that many enterprises are outsourcing parts of their business or integrating with partners to provide
end-to-end services, there is also an increasing need to work together in a "service ecosystem".
Experience and knowledge of the SOA approach is a valuable asset for students that want to enhance their marketable IT industry
skills and hone their business acumen. Including SOA in the university curriculum can give students a broad understanding
of the factors involved in a real-world environment and help prepare them for the situations they will face
in the work force. |
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These pages point you to many resources both inside and outside IBM.
- First learn about the general concepts
and many applications of SOA.
- Next, connect with technology experts and other educators to explore the possibilities for your
school or university.
- And then, incorporate SOA into your curriculum in small or large ways, from a brief introduction in a
beginning level course to a graduate-level group project.
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Some useful links to start you in the right direction:
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