BEA Systems, Inc. announced the imminent release of BEA SmartConnect 3.0, a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach to enterprise resource planning (ERP) connectivity. BEA SmartConnect 3.0 consists of a proven, scalable and complete connectivity solution designed to allow service-enabling ERP applications to quickly build new SOA-based applications, while helping to reduce total cost of ownership and providing better performance and scalability.

Based on BEA AquaLogic Service Bus, BEA SmartConnect 3.0 can radically change how companies view ERP integration by enabling organizations to increase business agility and time-to-market for ERP or customer relationship management applications. This next-generation connectivity solution can provide key service integration for all the BEA WebLogic and AquaLogic product families and is designed to act as the backbone for a scalable, flexible and comprehensive SOA which includes business process management, data services, governance and security.

"BEA continues to raise the bar in technological innovation and SOA advancement -- we understand our customers are seeking to increase their return on ERP investments and that integrating enterprise-wide business processes using SOA is the best way to do this," said Thanh Tran, senior vice president of AquaLogic products for BEA Systems. "BEA is committed to our customers, and we're always looking for ways to help them increase time-to-market while lowering costs. With BEA SmartConnect 3.0, we can help our customers react more quickly to changing market dynamics and competitive threats which can help to reduce the average cost of ERP business processes."

For organizations seeking to integrate ERP processes into enterprise-wide business processes, BEA SmartConnect 3.0 can provide organizations the ability to start with a small SOA-based integration or ERP connectivity initiative and to move to a larger enterprise-wide, multi-domain project. Additionally, the solution is designed to offer mission-critical reliability, performance and security without the need for dedicated hardware unlike traditional adapters.

By offering next-generation connectivity and the full capabilities of BEA AquaLogic Service Bus, BEA SmartConnect 3.0 is designed to deliver:

• Higher scalability
• Flexible deployments
• Ubiquitous service-oriented solution to connectivity
• Minimal downtime and ease of upgrades
• Reduction in cost of ownership
• High performance