BEA Systems, an enterprise infrastructure software has announced the availability of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for Executives, the first BEA suite of SOA services for senior IT executives. This suite is designed to help empower executives to invest in SOA and lead change within their organizations by conveying the business value of SOA through BEA’s sensible approach. BEA is scheduled to debut education course modules from the SOA for Executives services during a pre-conference workshop at BEAWorld 2006 on Monday, September 18th at 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. in San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

The new SOA for Executives suite of services is the only set of professional services that are built for executives from the ground up and based on BEA’s experience with SOA at Global 2400 companies. According to a recent IDG Research Services survey of 500 IT and business professionals, the top inhibitors to SOA deployment are a lack of skill or training, building a new governance model, internal IT and organization barriers, and defining metrics to measure SOA.

“Many IT leaders are seeking guidance on how to approach pressing issues related to the business and organizational dimensions associated with SOA, including changing roles in the enterprise, governance procedures and policies, and funding considerations,” said Sandra Rogers, director of SOA research at IDC. “Leveraging the experiences gained from peers, and from vendors that have been involved in multiple initiatives, can be of benefit as CIOs navigate issues related to both human and technology change management.”

SOA for Executives is designed to help address these challenges, and to help justify investment to the business along with organization and governance. The new set of services consists of:

Consulting Services

An Organization and Governance Executive Forum that brings together senior IT management for a two day client working session to identify SOA priorities and assign roles and responsibilities.

A Costs and Benefits Workshop, a half-day client session to assist in identifying a SOA justification model and accelerate SOA buy-in. This will be available later in the Q3 fiscal quarter.

Education Services

• “SOA: Strategic Concepts and Principles” education course covering the concepts and principles of SOA, based on the six domains and illustrated with real-world examples.

• “SOA Costs and Benefits” education course exploring how to measure the economics of SOA.

• “SOA Organization and Governance” education course providing models for IT alignment, including goals alignment, organization development, SLA’s, and other aspects unique to a SOA environment.

“Companies face the possibility of getting bogged down in SOA organization and governance challenges or cost issues as they expand their SOA initiatives. BEA believes these issues should not be an inhibitor to SOA adoption. BEA’s new services are designed to help demystify these challenges and to provide senior IT management with a simplified, proven approach which doesn’t require an army of consultants,” said Bruce Graham, senior vice president, worldwide consulting at BEA Systems, Inc. “The combination of education courses and experienced consulting guidance is designed to help our customers’ executives make decisions, catalyze change and realize their SOA goals faster.”

Graham is also slated to also discuss how SOA for Executives can help organizations address SOA issues during his keynote address at BEAWorld 2006 on Tuesday, September 19th at 11:15 a.m. at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Early access to parts of the services program will be offered exclusively to BEAWorld San Francisco registrants, including free access to the “SOA: Strategic Concepts and Principles” online self-study course as well as a pre-conference workshop with an SOA track that covers organization development and costs and benefits analysis. For more information about BEAWorld 2006, please visit www.bea.com/beaworld.