A new white paper entitled "Service-Oriented Architecture: Making Collaborative Government Work" was released by the Center for Digital Government, a research and advisory institute on information technology. The paper examines how governments can better serve citizens through Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) -- a modern data infrastructure that is sturdy, reliable and relatively simple.

The paper defines SOA, Web services and XML, the programming language of SOA and Web Services, and looks at the ways these tools can best be used in governments. "Service-Oriented Architecture: Making Collaborative Government Work" overviews the benefits of using SOA to help in data management, workflow management, service consolidation and numerous other areas of "doing the public's business." The paper also outlines action steps to get started and describes what a completed SOA project will look like.

Vibhas Chandrachood, executive director of Application Development for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, was interviewed for the paper. He explains that SOA is an information technology solution that will help Kentucky solve business problems, including the potential loss of employees during baby boomer retirement.

"We currently have the personnel [to manage operations]," said Chandrachood, "but we may not have that luxury in the future. So part of SOA is answering the question of how to do more with less."

The paper explains that governments can no longer justify unnecessary duplication of infrastructure and that SOA can provide governments and their leaders an opportunity to cultivate trust among citizens.

The paper can also be downloaded online at www.centerdigitalgov.com.