Arlington, VA July 31, 2008 -- Association for Enterprise Integration (AFEI) released its report, "Industry Recommendations for DoD Acquisition of Information Services and SOA Systems." The report outlines industry recommendations for developing services and services-oriented architecture (SOA) procurement strategies. The report is available for download at the AFEI web site (www.afei.org).

The report was generated by the AFEI Executive Forum, SOA Acquisition Working Group, representing a broad cross-section of DoD information technology suppliers and integrators including BEA Systems/Oracle, IBM, Lockheed Martin, McDonald Bradley/ManTech, Northrop Grumman and SAIC.

"The collaboration among industry and Government team members was exceptional. We had representatives from across the spectrum--systems integrators to product houses working with Government participants to ensure that this industry was able to provide relevant and useful inputs," said MaryAnn Kiefer, contributing consultant.

This report provides specific recommendations to DoD on structuring acquisition strategies and requests for proposals (RFPs), and provides industry views on acquiring capabilities and services within the SOA construct. It also explores how acquisition models for services differ from the traditional approach, providing recommendations on how to leverage the best of each.

"Unlocking the real power of SOA is definitely a team sport. It involves a new level of collaboration between government and industry, both from a technical and business model perspective. The payoff in mission capability and rapid reconfigurability is clear to everyone, but doing it well requires all of us to evolve how we play our roles as program managers, acquisition experts, architects, and product and services providers." said Dave McQueeney, industry co-chair of the effort. "The unique charter of AFEI and NDIA allowed us to quickly assemble a tremendous breadth of skills and diverse viewpoints from government and industry, and we were able to make some concrete recommendations that we believe will help the Department of Defense advance its capabilities."

The report provides guidance for program managers planning the acquisition of a SOA to help them understand the issues. It addresses, from an industry perspective, specific elements of the challenges highlighted by the John Grimes, DoD CIO, in his March 27, 2007 testimony given by to the House Armed Services Committee, where he stated "much of today's information environment is still characterized by stovepipes and systems in which information is quite frankly hidden and hoarded rather than visible and shared..."

"AFEI members want to help DoD in this transformation," said Dave Chesebrough, President of AFEI. "We will need many more of these types of collaborative efforts as we transition from current post-Cold War business models into the future net-enabled DoD information environment."

The report's recommendations are scheduled to be briefed to Mr. Grimes and are available for immediate download at the AFEI web site (www.afei.org).

About AFEI:
The Association for Enterprise Integration (AFEI) is an industry association dedicated to the advancement of the sharing, integration, management and protection of information across extended enterprises (people, process and technology), with a focus on national security and defense issues. AFEI (www.afei.org) is an affiliate subsidiary of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) (www.ndia.org), America's leading defense industry association promoting national security.