Pedro Harris of the department's chief information technology office, says the requirement directly fitted a service-oriented architecture, yet he views the new platform as a strategic investment rather than a specific solution.
"With SOA there are always high costs to create the operating and development environment," Harris says.
"It was important that line-of-business systems such as SAP, point-of-sale and integrated title systems could communicate in a structured way. It was clear we needed a target environment that leveraged existing applications and systems to create an environment that best served customers' needs."