Reinventing government by deploying leading-edge technology is a time-proven strategy. New technology can help government agencies -- and the civilian and military enterprises that serve them -- deliver additional services, reduce costs, and enhance constituent satisfaction. Yet, governmental agencies often distribute their technology tools across siloed organizations, each of which retains control over the systems and their use. While there maybe cohesion in the structure and exchange of information within each organization, there is very little external exchange or cross-agency coordination.
When required to collaborate, agencies typically duplicate effort, personnel, and investment dollars -- failing to exploit the full value of the technology. But, the days of stove-piped government technologies may be numbered.
Government agencies are beginning to embrace a new concept called service-oriented architecture (SOA), a way of partitioning larger I.T. systems into smaller components called services that can be shared and reused. Services are packages of software "building blocks" that provide a specific functionality.
