IT organizations 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, "53% of the respondents were already using SOA in some part of their organizations. Another 25% were not using it, but had plans to do so in the next 12 months."*

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 business-oriented SOA middleware backbone, enabling application-to-application and business-to-business integration across your business networks. With a robust set of prepackaged integration templates, companies can focus on their business process requirements and resolve traditional technical integration hurdles.

Compose Applications that Address Business Needs Faster

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 standardization – 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.

Increase Flexibility with SOA

For greater flexibility, SAP Business Suite (powered by SAP NetWeaver) enables you to adopt SOA at your own pace and with minimized risk and cost by delivering 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.

* D. Sholler, 2008 SOA User Survey: Adoption Trends and Characteristics,Gartner Inc., Sept. 26, 2008