HP Expands Service-oriented Architecture Services

HP today announced a comprehensive suite of service-oriented architecture (SOA) consulting services and the opening of four worldwide competency centers to assist customers in planning, designing, implementing and managing SOAs to improve their business performance.

SOA is a highly efficient and cost-effective way to integrate heterogeneous IT systems and increase business agility. HP's new services are designed to assist customers through the entire SOA process, from envisioning and assessment to development and governance.

Located in Atlanta, Bangalore, India, Sophia Antipolis, France and Tokyo, the SOA competency centers are staffed with HP and third-party experts to offer customers access to architecture and consulting skills, software and hardware demonstrations, seminars and hands-on workshops.

The new services and competency centers build on HP's existing SOA consulting services and management software and follow the recent introduction of HP OpenView SOA Manager, a tool designed to manage the lifecycle of business services in order to achieve better linkages between business and IT.

HP offers the two critical elements for using SOA to run IT as a business: management software and professional consulting services.

"Companies can no longer afford to have disconnected technology and business processes that are not aligned to drive business performance," said Nigel Ball, vice president, worldwide marketing, Consulting and Integration, HP Services. "SOA is an ideal way to help customers effectively bring new products and services to market faster and increase IT governance while reducing IT complexity and costs of maintenance."

By enabling businesses to become more agile, HP's SOA services and competency centers underscore the company's strategy of helping customers transform their businesses into Adaptive Enterprises in which business and IT are synchronized to capitalize on change.

HP's SOA delivery approach and process is based on several strengths: a robust architectural foundation; extensive research and benchmarks across vertical industries; a global network of third-party providers and HP Services professionals with expertise in architecture, governance, management, and security solutions; and a broad portfolio of SOA services.

BEA Systems, Inc., JBoss Inc., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG are among the companies working with HP and its approximately 65,000 services professionals in 170 countries to spur adoption of SOAs.

"BEA is working closely with HP to help accelerate momentum around service-oriented architecture development and adoption," said Bruce Graham, vice president, Worldwide Professional Services, BEA.

"Designed for a service-oriented world, our .NET tools and technologies help developers and architects create new applications as well as connect existing systems," said Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president of developer and platform evangelism, Microsoft Corp.

HP has an extensive delivery capability through more than 5,000 specialists with experience in .NET, J2EE and open source middleware platforms.

Using a combination of HP regional and global application services delivery centers, HP offers high-quality solutions using uniform processes and methodologies (CMMi, ISO, ITSM) and best practices. In addition, the company recently instituted an SOA University for its consultants in order to enhance its vertical market and regional delivery capabilities.