ST. CHARLES, Mo. – Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a termmuch bandied about these days, along with its close relatives XML,Microsoft .NET and Web services. But what is SOA? “SOA is asoftware architectural style based on loose coupling among softwareagents that interact,” is how it's defined by David Turner, chiefinformation officer with IntegraSys in Frisco, Texas. Turner alsodescribes SOA this way: “You have the consumer of the service,somebody who wants a function performed. And you have the providerof that service. SOA is the integration piece that facilitates theaction between them.” Meanwhile, communications standards and toolslike XML, Web services and Microsoft .NET are the connecting piecesthat make SOA happen. To Gary Hinrichs, president of $82 millionWest Community Credit Union in St. Charles, SOA is a perhaps bit oftechnical talk which really means “that you can go out and get thebest of breed, the best product, and you aren't limited to what thecore processor brings to the table.” Hinrichs, a 31-year-veteran ofhis own CU, knows something about working with his core processor.He's the current president of the Premier Users Group and hiscredit union has been a client of IntegraSys and predecessors,including EDS and the Missouri Credit Union League, for more than20 years. “We want to be able to make it simple to do our jobs onthe retail side, that's what SOA means to me,” Hinrichs says.“During the year, the 15 or so of us credit unions in the usersgroup meet a couple times and stay in touch with conference callsand come up with the list of wild and crazy things we'd like to doin the coming year with our core systems. “Then IntegraSys comesback with a look at how much it'll take to do these projects and wehave to choose between them. To their credit, they integrated a lotof our input into the new Premier system.” West Community currentlyis involved in upgrading to Premier New Generation, one of 100clients on the new service-oriented architecture version of thatcore processing system. Meanwhile, 67 credit unions are now usingSOA through the other IntegraSys platform, CubicsPlus, with another53 scheduled by the end of the year, the Fiserv unit says. “Thereal key to service-oriented architecture is that we like to talkabout how the interfaces are now loosely coupled, and the providerand the customer don't have to have a lot of knowledge of eachother's technology to take advantage of the service,” Turner says.“That contrasts to the traditional approach of integration, whereyou have to have a technical person who understands both sides ofthe interface, how each application really works, in order to makethat integration work effectively,” he says. Hinrichs says thechange was much needed for his 15,700-member institution. “Thefront end of the Premier product had gotten to the point where itwas woefully lacking, but the back end is really very solid anddynamic. Now we can concentrate more on the `wow' factor, reallymaking a difference to our members when they walk through our doorin the way we can match up and deliver products and services theywant and need,” he says. At West Community CU, teller functionswere the first to be implemented using the new SOA tools, withcross-selling coming next, followed by a contact manager function,Hinrichs says. At IntegraSys, which serves about a thousand creditunions, “we really started down this path quite a while ago. Andonce we started, this philosophy was adopted across the entireenterprise, in all the products we're developing,” Turner says.“Although these technologies do absolutely nothing to change thebasic cooperative, member-friendly premise of a credit union, theywill overwhelmingly impact how credit unions compete with otherfinancial services firms,” he adds. That's because using thosetools allows credit unions to more personalize their service byintegrating banking channels and making those channels easier touse with consistent interfaces, the IntegraSys CIO says. And itallows them to do this all quickly, using those standards ofintegration and connection. “For instance, we made a presentationto a prospect with a highly technical staff that does a lot ofdevelopment on its own. They had a loan-origination system theywould want to integrate into our core system,” Turner says. “So weexplained how they could do that with our service-orientedarchitecture and invited them to give it a try. “Within an hour,literally, they took that loan system and booked a loan into ourcore system, and all they had was a working knowledge of Webservices. They're now a client.” -

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