IBM is helping U.S. government agencies implement service-oriented architectures with a new center that designs and tests SOA technologies, assists with customer pilots, and acts as a central warehouse for reusable technology assets.

The IBM Federal SOA Institute in Bethesda, Md., announced today, will provide a setting for IBM researchers, universities and federal agencies to collaborate. In addition, the center will host a speaker series on such topics as SOA governance, modeling, security and reuse of legacy assets.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, Navy, Bureau of Labor Statistics and Department of Education have expressed interest in using the center, IBM says.

The Interior Department is in the early stages of adopting an SOA that will let its bureaus share resources, says Daud Santosa, the department’s CTO. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey has geospatial technology that could support operations in other Interior bureaus, he says.

“The problem we’re trying to solve is basically, the IT budget is continually going down in the government, so we need to have a different kind of thinking in the future of how we want to overcome the challenges,” Santosa says. “The concept of SOA will allow us in the future to start sharing infrastructure across DOI.”

Santosa is interested in having his employees trained in SOA at the IBM institute, he says. The Interior Department already is using IBM WebSphere portals to build the foundation for a SOA infrastructure.

“We have a very limited skill set not only in the government, but I think in the commercial [sector] as well for IT in terms of SOA skill set,” Santosa says.

IBM says it opened the center because federal agencies are taking a closer look at SOA today as they face budget constraints, security concerns and aging IT systems.

“In the institute’s working lab, SOA methodologies and technologies are being designed, tested and demonstrated specifically for federal environments,” IBM states in a press release. “The lab is also assisting with customer-related pilots, and serving as a central location to store reusable technology assets that can accelerate customer acceptance.”

The customer-related pilots involve federal agencies testing SOA scenarios at the institute, IBM says. There is no fee for this service or others offered by the institute. IBM charges money when a federal agency has a client engagement, such as a software deployment.