Capgemini to Contribute First SOA Notation and Methodology to OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints Committee.

LONDON -- Capgemini has today announced the release of the first business-centred SOA Methodology and Notation available in the public domain; a part of Capgemini's complete Integrated Architecture Framework, this notation and methodology is aimed at helping organisations map out their business architectures and then use this to drive IT and business alignment.

"Capgemini's SOA approach is all about the collaboration between business and IT to deliver the right systems and strategy," said Andy Mulholland, Global Chief Technology Officer, Capgemini. "This SOA notation and methodology is being contributed to help provide a standard way for IT and Business to work together to provide a clear 'big picture' view of the enterprise and to ensure that projects are able to incrementally deliver a truly service oriented enterprise."

Capgemini, one of the world's foremost providers of Consulting, Technology and Outsourcing services, today announced the first release of a business-focused notation and methodology for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). As part of Capgemini's Integrated Architecture Framework (IAF), the methodology and notation is focused on enabling IT and business to communicate effectively to define common business service architecture. IAF then works through the various stages that are required to turn that business architecture into reality.

"By contributing this SOA methodology to OASIS Capgemini are demonstrating our commitment in helping companies realise the promise of Service Oriented Architecture." said Steve Jones, CTO Application Development Transformation, Capgemini UK, and lead on Capgemini's SOA notation and methodology. "Capgemini sees Service Oriented Architecture as being a business driven initiative and this contribution is focused on helping organisations create those business service views."

The elements of this SOA notation and methodology are focused on helping solve one of the biggest challenges in IT today - alignment to business strategy and objectives. Further, Capgemini has released this notation and approach to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), the e-business standards group, with the goal of stimulating debate and accelerating a business-focused view of architecture within the SOA community which OASIS leads.

"This is very valuable. This notation can be used to develop formal SOA Blueprints business requirements," said Miko Matsumura VP of Technology Standards at Infravio and Chair of the OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints Technical Committee "This will help ensure that organizations implement Intentional SOA--a coherent plan to continuously synchronize SOA to business goals."

"Technologists and standards groups have given enterprises some basic tools and methods, but as a community, we haven't yet done enough to describe their use in the field," observed Jamie Clark, director of standards development for OASIS. "Once you have paintbrushes and a canvas, you still have to decide what to paint. Tools to define and describe the specific services for real world business cases will be tremendous enablers for our SOA work and for shared service architectures."

"SOA is much more than just being a way of thinking but also a way of doing things," said Mark Carges, Chief Technology, BEA Systems, Inc. "Our customers tell us they need better re-use of IT assets and service-enabling these assets using open standards. They are also looking for ways to orchestrate the way these assets work together, regardless of the service source or platform. Like many other IT paradigms, SOA requires a rich ecosystem of tools, technologies standards and know-how to make it a reality. We are excited to be working with Capgemini and OASIS on developing the first business notation for SOA."

This SOA notation and methodology was developed by Capgemini as a simple approach to quickly assessing complex organisations and projects and to provide a clear structure in which future requirements and architecture could be developed. This approach is based on a simple three stage iterative process that addresses the "What, Who, and Why" behind the services, actors and drivers, respectively. Each service is then examined to see if additional detail is required to determine how it works internally, and if so, the process is repeated to outline the individual components of that service. This de-composition approach helps to eliminate the challenge of service granularity and provides a consistent view from the boardroom to IT implementation.

"Oracle and Capgemini have established firm links around linking Oracle's Fusion strategy with Capgemini's SOA approach to enterprise architecture" said Edwin Khodabakchian VP, BPEL Development, Oracle, "Oracle see Capgemini's contribution of the first publicly available SOA methodology to OASIS as an opportunity to further standardise not only the technology but business representation of SOA. Oracle are already committed to aligning our approach to open standards and are working on delivering the tools and platforms to best enable SOA from business to implementation."

"Capgemini shares a common focus for developing best practices to support SOA adoption through the deployment of standards-based frameworks leveraging Java and Web services," said Mark Bauhaus, Senior Vice President, Business Integration, Application Platform and Identity, Sun Microsystems. "We look forward to supporting this initiative with complementary offerings such as Sun's SOA Repeatable Quality (RQ) methodology, and applaud the fact that it is being advanced with the OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints Technical Committee -- underscoring a commitment to growing the initiative in an open forum with opportunity for community participation."

By contributing the approach and notation to the OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints Technical Committee, Capgemini hopes to work with the other members of the group in defining both the technical, and critically, the business SOA blueprints that can provide a standard structure for the assessment and implementation of SOA projects and enterprises.

"Capgemini's SOA methodology is significant in that it clearly identifies the need to define the organisational and work boundaries intersected by services, especially where they are true business services crossing contractual boundaries or inter-organisational IT services." said Andy Ellis, Microsoft "By emphasising the need to develop requirements through facilitated collaboration across those contractual boundaries, the methodology provides clear practical guidance towards defining and developing effective IT services for a truly service oriented enterprise."

About the Capgemini Group

Capgemini, one of the world's foremost providers of Consulting, Technology and Outsourcing services, has a unique way of working with its clients, which it calls the Collaborative Business Experience. Through commitment to mutual success and the achievement of tangible value, Capgemini helps businesses implement growth strategies, leverage technology, and thrive through the power of collaboration. Capgemini employs approximately 60,000 people worldwide and reported 2004 global revenues of 6.3 billion euros.

More information about individual service lines, offices and research is available at http://www.capgemini.com/

About OASIS

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, and XCBF. http://www.oasis-open.org