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Service-oriented Architecture _{Removing the Obstacles to Integrated Justice Data Exchanges}

Who Will Benefit from SOA Services?

While SOA and Web Services offer many advantages to a wide range of industries, justice agencies in particular could benefit greatly from their implementation because they typically :

• Have an extensive set of organizations that they need to share information with. Within the justice community, information often needs to be shared between the courts, public defenders, local police departments, etc. SOA software can greatly reduce the amount of time required to start electronic information exchanges among agencies.


• Regularly introduce new services that contain an IT component. Rather than having to reinvent the wheel every time new functionality is needed, the modularity of SOA software allows agencies to innovate more rapidly by leveraging already-existing assets. For example, imagine that a police department wants to have email reminders sent to officers the day before their scheduled court appearances. Rather than going through the expensive process of creating this new function from scratch, the police department realizes it can achieve the same results by making some simple additions to the already-existing calendar component utilized by their software.


• Have frequently changing processes or policies. The ways in which members of the justice community interact with each other—from submitting reports to filing information—is constantly evolving. SOA software can give justice agencies the flexibility they need to respond and adapt to changing processes and policies.


• Require superior IT capabilities for success. Having reliable, flexible information sharing technology is crucial to the decision-making capabilities of every member of the justice community. Lack of timely, accurate and complete data can lead to tragic consequences.

Getting Started with SOA

So how does one get started with SOA? Trying to implement SOA principles in-house can be a monumental task that takes years. Fortunately, with an SOA implementation, justice agencies have options. Certain software providers are now making SOA software packages that can be implemented much more quickly and inexpensively than if an agency tried to develop an SOA solution on their own. One of these companies is New Dawn Technologies.

New Dawn Technologies has been an early adopter of justice information exchange standards. Its JustWare | Solution Suite is built using SOA principles, providing justice agencies with a web-based and customizable solution to information sharing. Its data exchange interface, JusticeBroker, empowers agencies with the means to share information without compromising the autonomy of their separate systems or the security of the information that they control. JustWare’s data-viewing portal, JusticeWebview, allows agencies to securely share important case information with participating organizations, provide web calendars and event information to the press and public, and to access automated or on-demand reports from anywhere by the use of web browser technology.

Summary

Because SOA’s design philosophy enables entirely new ways for businesses to operate and collaborate, its adoption, like the Internet before it, will cause shifts in the landscape of virtually every industry. SOA is poised to significantly change how justice agencies share information and exchange services. Those who fail to adhere to its principles will be left behind when it enables other agencies to shift into high gear.