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Service Oriented Architecture for education

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a standards-based design approach for creating an integrated IT infrastructure capable of rapidly responding to changing needs.

SOA is not a product; it’s a method of designing systems—in effect, the architectural drawings or blueprint—that directs how IT resources will be integrated with each other. SOA also manages which (and when) services will be available. SOA promotes better and more efficient alignment of your IT resources with your institution’s goals.

Microsoft SOA solutions take advantage of the service-orientation capabilities that are built into the Microsoft Windows platform and complemented by Microsoft technologies for the development, management, and consumption of services. The best way to implement these solutions is with a phased approach and the guidance of a Microsoft partner.

Consolidate your IT resources and optimize their efficiency

You likely have separate applications and databases that capture student information, allocate transportation fleets, and manage food services, among other tasks. With SOA, you unlock those IT resources from their application silos to make their respective functions and information available to more people across your institution. Along with reducing the need to have the same information in multiple places (which requires time and effort to keep synchronized), you can improve access to those applications and databases. For instance, when new students enroll, all of their information is entered in one place, via single sign-on (SSO), from any number of devices. The relevant information is automatically populated to all applications that rely on student information, so it’s easier to trigger whatever is necessary to serve those students—from bus route numbers to lunch account balances.

Key benefits

Using SOA can help you:

• Reduce IT costs. By integrating your existing IT infrastructure and the applications you are already using into a single environment, you can use your existing IT investments (instead of purchasing an entirely new system) and enjoy easier upgrade processes in the future.
• Make better decisions. Relevant information, such as student assessment data or up-to-date budget reports is easier to find when you provide role-based access through SSO from a variety of devices.
• Address your present and future needs. With SOA, your systems and applications become more flexible, so they’re optimized for today’s known demands and still allow for quick modifications that respond to new requirements and opportunities.
• Improve productivity. Improving information flow and access allows staff to increase productivity, eliminate time-intensive manual processes, and focus on the most important aspects of their jobs.

A smart approach to SOA

Although SOA has a great deal of promise, it can sometimes be challenging to develop and implement a comprehensive plan that has the necessary buy-in from stakeholders and is not cost prohibitive. Instead of the “rip and replace” approach that some SOA solutions require, we suggest an incremental approach that focuses on your goals, integrates your existing IT resources, and maximizes the return on your SOA investment. This is achieved through a three-phase process:

• Phase 1: Expose. In the first phase, your existing IT resources (such as legacy systems and line-of-business applications) are made available as services with which you can communicate through standardized messaging formats, such as Web services.
• Phase 2: Compose. The goal of the second phase is to enable greater flexibility and agility by allowing you to add or change processes without being constrained by the underlying IT systems and applications. You achieve this goal by pulling together the services you exposed in the first phase into larger processes or workflows.
• Phase 3: Consume. In the final phase, you develop the dynamic (or composite) applications that consume the underlying services and processes. These applications—based on Web technologies (such as portals or AJAX), rich clients, Microsoft Office applications, or mobile devices—are what drive the productivity of your end users.

Customer success case studies

Identity management solution keeps parents in Anoka-Hennepin School District informed.
The largest school district in Minnesota strongly encourages parents to get actively involved in their children’s education, but a mixed software and hardware infrastructure made it difficult to offer parents access to relevant student and school program information. To solve the problem, a centralized, Web-based application was developed to help give parents quick and easy access to this data.

Next Steps

• Find a Microsoft partner to help you plan out and create a portal solution at your school district.
• Contact us to learn more about SOA solutions and how it could help you.