OASIS Forms Committee to Develop SOA Reference Model

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis_news_05_03_05.php 

Adobe Systems, AmSoft, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, Fujitsu, General Motors, Infravio, NEC, Reactivity, SOA Software, VISA, and
Others Collaborate on a Foundation for Service Oriented Architectures

Boston, MA, USA; 3 May 2005 -- International standards consortium, OASIS, announced the formation of a new committee to develop a
core reference model that will guide and foster the creation of specific, service-oriented architectures (SOA). The new OASIS SOA
Reference Model (SOA-RM) Technical Committee will promote the continued development of multiple SOAs and related standards by acting
as a guide for those writing SOAs and an analysis of their functional components. 

"The term SOA is used in an increasing number of contexts with differing-and even conflicting-meanings," said Duane Nickull of Adobe
Systems, chair of the OASIS SOA-RM Technical Committee. "If SOA is architecture, as the name implies, then we should define it as
architecture.  The reference model we create will be useful for the entire industry, offering a way to preserve a common layer of
understanding across multiple service oriented environments and architectures."

Specifically, the SOA reference model will offer an understanding of the core elements within a service oriented environment and the
associations and relationships among those elements. The reference model itself will not be directly tied to any standards,
technologies or other concrete implementation details. Rather, it will be an abstract, designed to be used as a tool by software and
enterprise architects developing specific SOAs.

"In addition to vendors, there is a significant contingent of SOA end users from across the globe rallying around this work to
define the basic, common elements of any service-oriented system," noted James Bryce Clark, Director of Standards Development at
OASIS. He cited participation from government agencies such as Japan's Electronic Commerce Promotion Council, Canada's Public Works
and Government Services, and USA's Department of Homeland Security, as well as users that include Boeing, General Motors, Lockheed
Martin, Mitre, and VISA.

The OASIS SOA-RM Technical Committee already has more than 45 members, and participation remains open to all organizations and
individuals, especially those directly involved in the design, documentation, or implementation of SOAs. As with all OASIS projects,
archives of the Committee's work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public
comment.


Industry Support for SOA-RM

Booz Allen Hamilton
"Booz Allen Hamilton is proud to participate in the development of a standardized SOA reference model" said Rebekah Metz, Associate
at Booz Allen Hamilton.  "A cornerstone of the service-oriented approach is encouraging the growth of diverse yet interoperable
implementations. The planned SOA reference model will provide a unified foundation from which the architecture for such
implementations can evolve. We look forward to sharing the benefits of this important concept with our clients."

Infravio
"This week, Infravio increased sponsorship of OASIS to participate in the OASIS SOA-RM TC and future SOA work," said Miko Matsumura,
vice president of marketing at Infravio. "As OASIS moves 'up the stack' it becomes increasingly important to Infravio and our focus
on SOA customer's business requirements."

Reactivity
"SOA success requires a reliable and flexible reference model enterprises can use as the basis for implementing their own
infrastructures to support SOA," said Andrew Nash, CTO at Reactivity. "Reactivity has been a leader in the development of the SOA
infrastructure and believes this OASIS Technical Committee presents a great opportunity to for all vendors to align their efforts to
simplify SOA for the enterprise."

SOA Software
"As a leader in Service Oriented Architecture Infrastructure, we are focused on rapid implementation and adoption of emerging
standards and are deeply committed to the standards process," said Roberto Medrano, Executive Vice President at SOA Software. "The
SOA reference model will promote a deeper understanding of the value employing a correctly designed service-oriented architecture
can bring to large enterprise and government organizations."


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 4,000 participants representing over
600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DocBook, DSML, ebXML, SAML,
SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, and XCBF. http://www.oasis-open.org


Additional information:
OASIS SOA-RM Technical Committee:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/soa-rm

Cover Pages Technology Report: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA):
 http://xml.coverpages.org/soa.html


Press contact:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209