Accenture's Future Growth: Service Oriented Architecture

SOA Articles : Accenture's Future Growth: Service Oriented Architecture by Rene' V. Richards

On the cutting edge of technology, as well as pushing the envelope for management and consulting services, service-oriented architecture or SOA, as it has come to be known, is opening the door to higher levels of computer applications.

SOA is not a new concept, however the level to which Accenture hopes to innovate, is. Fourth level SOA will push interface between software and hardware to a greater level of maturation.

The goal of the new lab, known as the Accenture Technology Lab for SOA innovation, is to accelerate the development of SOA applications customized for specific industries, geared primarily toward healthcare and financial services sector. Since these industries are the most heavily serviced by Accenture, these are the targeted areas for Accenture's initial implementation.

"We are developing level-four SOA applications and will use the knowledge gained to improve our methods, processes and tools to help our clients," said Don Rippert, Accenture's chief technology officer. The primary aim will be to move toward the point in time when SOA's evolution allows companies to build solutions assembled from reusable modules.

Along with the new lab, Accenture plans to invest $450 million over the next three years to accelerate the initiative. The initiative and implementation is following a blueprint devised by Accenture that divides the process into four levels. Levels one and two are already realized, however the realization of full benefits doesn't occur until the fourth level, and this lab is intended to bring utilization to that point.

The pioneering project will focus on the healthcare industry bringing about the integration of multiple steps that are involved in the filling of a prescription. These steps include credit-checking, billing, code generation, and risk assessment. This project, known as the "e-prescription" will seek to prove the feasibility of SOA solutions using software and tools available today.

Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=262786