HP has developed service-oriented architecture (SOA) frameworks targeting four industries that are ripe to adopt the latest trend in software development.

Designed for the financial services, manufacturing and distribution, network service provider and public sector industries, HP’s SOA frameworks allow customers to more readily integrate software applications, take advantage of market opportunities and gain competitive advantage.

SOA is an approach for managing computing environments that uses loosely coupled, reusable and standards-based services to address changing business needs.

IDC forecasts that worldwide SOA-based external services spending will reach $8.6 billion in 2006, from $3.6 billion in 2005, an increase of 138 percent. By 2010, external spending for SOA services is expected to be more than $33.8 billion on a global basis.(1)

HP’s SOA frameworks improve communication and information sharing among customers, partners and colleagues by extracting data locked in legacy applications. They also provide tested, bundled services to help customers assess, design and accelerate the implementation of applications while reducing operational and maintenance costs.

“HP recognises that particular industries have very specific technology requirements to effectively run their operations,” said Uday Kumaraswami, vice president, Worldwide Enterprise Applications Practice, HP Services. “HP’s SOA vertical frameworks are tailored to speed up processes and provide a flexible foundation for continuous improvements in their respective industries.”

Financial services industry
Helvetia Patria, a leading European insurance company based in Switzerland, turned to HP to implement a centralised Internet-based platform for the insurance industry that links information among its employees, partners and customers across Europe. Using HP Nimius software and BEA WebLogic Server, HP built the SOA platform on an industry-standard, open architecture with integrated user management and multi-linguistic capabilities. Since implementation, the company has achieved a 201 percent return on investment over a six-year period with its SOA offering, according to an independent study by Thoughtware Worldwide, LLC.

“Four years ago, we found ourselves dealing with a disarray of sales channels built on various software applications all across Europe,” said Nick Stefania, deputy head, eBusiness Centre, Helvetia Patria. “We used HP’s SOA framework to help solve this problem, and after just months, our eBusiness Centre has operated so successfully that we’ve spun it out into a standalone company, called eSolutions Centre. The SOA has enabled more seamless communications between sales channels, better access to real-time information and, as a result, better service for customers. In short, the new architecture has definitely played a key role in the eSolutions Centre’s success.”

Helvetia Patria also reduced e-business IT operational costs by 59 percent while it experienced an internal rate of return of 26 percent. Additionally, the company was able to decrease the amount of time to introduce new products and services as it looks to expand its market share by opening new distribution channels across Europe.

HP Open Bank and HP Open Payments are designed to ease banks’ channel application integration with an SOA-based approach to commercial and non-commercial software, including Microsoft® .NET and BEA WebLogic’s J2EE. With a near real-time, 360-degree customer view, HP Open Bank and HP Open Payments technology frameworks can help bank personnel provide better and more targeted levels of customer service while improving sales efficiency.

Manufacturing and distribution industries
Based on SOA principles and three years of development, HP’s Manufacturing and Distribution Industries (MDI) reference architecture (MIRA) is designed to ensure that collaborative manufacturing solutions are rapidly delivered, flexibly maintained and harness existing investments.

In developing MIRA, HP combines its strengths in hardware, software and services with solution-focused initiatives from long standing partnerships with BEA Systems, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. MIRA accommodates a range of customer maturity levels, from infrastructure consolidation and application migration, through flexible SOA architectures for business and IT alignment, to achieving measurable business value derived from new business processes.

Public sector
HP’s e-government framework helps modernise government processes by allowing public agencies to more easily deliver new online services to customers while leveraging existing IT investments. Based on SOA, virtualisation and a model-driven architecture, the framework offers a complete solution for governments, from conceptualisation of the service-oriented government agency to development, implementation, management and support.

“As the information technology hub for the Dutch government, we are responsible for deterring illegal activities in our nation’s social payments systems,” said Olf Kinkhorst, director, Dutch Inlichtingenbureau (Information Office). “In 2003, we partnered with HP to implement an electronic data exchange built on an SOA, which has helped us make sure that only qualified citizens are receiving the appropriate payments.”

Network and service providers
In the telecom market, HP has developed two SOA-based frameworks that enable wireless, wireline and broadband operators to create, deploy and manage personalised, easy-to-use services.

The HP Service Delivery Platform (SDP) is a modular, integrated “blueprint” of standards-based software and tools, partner solutions, carrier-grade hardware, and consulting and integration services. HP SDP helps operators accelerate time-to-market – and time-to-revenue – by integrating network elements and gateways, common platform functions, and complex service creation and delivery processes. To reduce cost and risk, HP SDP minimises duplication and simplifies management by allowing multiple services to share resources.

The HP Integrated Service Management (ISM) offering integrates operations and business support systems to provide carriers and operators with a comprehensive, highly adaptive, service-oriented approach to managing networks and services. In addition, HP ISM helps customers to improve mediation and billing and assure the quality of service. HP ISM incorporates the HP OpenView operations support systems portfolio of network management and service assurance solutions.

More information about HP’s SOA solutions is available at http://www.hp.com/go/soa.

About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended Jan. 31, 2006, HP revenue totaled $87.9 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

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(1) IDC, "Worldwide SOA-Based Services 2006-2010 Forecast: Demand for Services Continues as Adoption Expands Across Industries and Geographies, #35072, March 2006

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