The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, whose vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™ will enable access to integrated information, within and among enterprises, based on open standards and global interoperability.

The Open Group’s Architecture Forum is a growing community of Enterprise Architects that has developed and is evolving The Open Group Architectural Framework TOGAF™ to enable businesses to achieve the right balance between IT efficiency and business innovation, while also taking into consideration the constantly changing needs of the business environment.

The Open Group is the only vendor-neutral and technology-neutral organization to provide certification programs to IT architects and is leading the way in the development of the IT Architecture profession. Recently, TOGAF 8 certifications surpassed more than 1,100 registered practitioners and more than 1,200 individuals have achieved IT Architect certification.

The Open Group sees SOA as a major contributor to realizing its overall vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™. SOA strengthens integration within and between enterprises. It connects the implementation more closely to the design so the decisions of architects can translate more quickly into new system functionality, delivering business agility. The Open Group has formed its SOA Working Group to develop and foster common understanding of SOA in order to facilitate alignment between the business and information technology communities. The scope of the SOA Working Group includes:

• Definition of SOA
• SOA Case Studies
• Relation of SOA to Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF
• SOA Governance
• SOA Reference Architecture
• SOA Maturity Model
• Ontologies for SOA
• Business-driven SOA

We of The Open Group are proud to host our 11th Architecture Practitioners Conference in San Diego, with the spotlight on SOA. We look forward to seeing you there!

return to Introduction