Organizations must adapt more rapidly than ever before - which means that they must align their IT environments with their business goals and deliver information on demand, when and where it is needed. In this white paper, the experts at IBM discuss how your company can meet this need for information on demand with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), a business-centric approach to IT architecture that supports integration through linked, repeatable business tasks or services.
Delivering information you can trust June 2007
IBM pureXML for SOA:
Unlocking the business value of
information Delivering information you can trust Page 2
As companies adapt to the realities of globalization, they face unprecedented Contents commoditization and competition. To remain competitive, organizations must adapt more rapidly than ever before-which means that they must align their 3 Information on Demand: IT environments with their business goals and deliver information on demand, A key advantage when and where it is needed. 4 XML enables flexible business process management Companies are increasingly meeting this need for information on demand 6 ACORD XML: with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), a business-centric approach to IT Helping insurers use information architecture that supports integration through linked, repeatable business in new ways tasks or services. SOA helps users build composite applications, which draw 7 IBM: The right platform for XML in upon functionality from multiple sources within and beyond the enterprise an SOA environment to support horizontal business processes. Rapid reuse of existing assets and 8 The pureXML advantage sharing of services and infrastructure across lines of business can be key factors 9 Complementary IBM products in creating business processes that can adjust to changing market conditions. 11 pureXML in action in financial services XML has emerged as an important driver for SOA-enabled business agility 12 pureXML and SOA in action in and growth because it is not tied to any specific platform, language or system. healthcare The use of SOA technology within businesses is driving an explosion of 14 pureXML and SOA in action in associated data-especially data represented in the XML format. Along with retail this widespread use of XML comes a variety of challenges associated with managing, processing, integrating and storing the data effectively:
. Businesses must retain XML documents for use in business processes while also having access to the data within the documents. . XML documents must be integrated with existing operational systems, including databases. . XML documents must flow from one application to another but leave a record of changes. . Employees need to access and update XML documents from multiple applications. . Companies must retain XML documents for audit and regulatory purposes. Delivering information you can trust Page 3
For many businesses, SOA and XML can be the keys to making the IT department a catalyst for growth and innovation. However, most companies need guidance and best practices to help them get started and enable them to use XML to its best advantage. IBM helps address this demand by offering a broad portfolio of products, deep industry experience and expertise gleaned from hundreds of client engagements to help organizations build dynamic SOA.
Information on Demand: A key advantage Today, information and business process are often captive to applications and aligned to organizational silos. This lack of a single, reliable, consolidated view of the enterprise frequently causes multiple instances of inconsistent information to exist within a single organization's IT infrastructure, which can inhibit flexibility and diminish customer satisfaction.
Instead, companies need a unified repository of master information governed by an infrastructure that makes data available across the enterprise, when and where it is needed. This Information on Demand approach can give organizations the power to better leverage critical information-helping to enforce customer centricity, provide operational intelligence, mitigate risk, simplify compliance and optimize business processes.
Unlike fragile, hard-coded point-to-point integrations that can inhibit growth and adaptability, an effective XML-based information integration and management strategy unifies data across the enterprise to enable the delivery of Information on Demand. Delivered when and how the business user needs it, Information on Demand can help enrich business processes, enable key contextual insights and inspire confident business decision making. Delivering information you can trust Page 4
XML enables flexible business process management Using XML, problems that are unsolvable in a relational environment can be solved. Metadata within XML ... [download for more]
