IT organizations are adopting services-oriented architecture technology to connect, realign, and create business processes to reduce costs, improve usability, and respond quickly to change.

According to a recent Gartner report, "the use of service-oriented architecture is accelerating in response to the growing need to more frequently change business processes, products, and services. Service-oriented architecture was used, to some extend, in more than 50% of large, new applications and business processes designed in 2007."*

With software and services from SAP and our partners, you can integrate applications to support end-to-end processes more efficiently, create new applications to increase process efficiency and business insight, and increase flexibility with service-oriented architecture technology. With these solutions, companies are:

• Improving efficiency and lowering total cost of ownership with centrally-managed integration based on open standards
• Creating applications quickly that increase user satisfaction and business insight
• Increasing flexibility with enterprise service-oriented architecture, SAP's unique approach to making service-oriented architecture easy

Improving Efficiency with Cost-Effective Integration

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (formerly SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure) gives you the ability to implement your SOA backbone. It helps you connect applications using standards-based XML and Web services messaging. You can leverage more than 250 adapter and content packages from SAP and our partners – such as iWay and Seeburger – to support architecture-to-architecture and business-to-business integration.

Creating Applications Quickly to Improve Satisfaction and Insight

SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment provides an integrated set of tools that help you build composite Java applications, including appealing user interfaces, dynamic business logic, reusable enterprise services, and data access code.

SAP fully supports process-modeling based on the market-leading business process modeling notation standard as well as enterprise-class business rules management. Also, 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 services and the SAP Developer Network Community are there to help, providing you with valuable insight.

Increasing Flexibility with Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture

Services-enabled for greater flexibility, SAP Business Suite – powered by SAP NetWeaver – enables you to adopt service-oriented architecture technology at your own pace and with minimized risk and cost. In addition, SAP Business Suite delivers thousands of enterprise services via enhancement packages.

Working with SAP's subject-matter experts, you can define an enterprise architecture strategy and establish a governance policy for your service-oriented architecture landscape. In addition, the Enterprise Services Repository delivered by SAP NetWeaver encourages re-use by providing visual tools that help you catalog and discover new and existing enterprise services.

*Service-Oriented Architecture Overview and Guide to SOA Research, Gartner Report, Charles Abrams and Roy Schulte, January 2008.

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