The announcement was made last week during IBM’s Federal SOA Executive Summit at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The IBM Federal SOA Institute is focused on three important mandates: innovation, solution development and testing, and education, company officials said.

SOA allows organizations’ to more closely align IT technology with business goals. They can loosely link various software-based services using middleware technology to provide business applications. By doing so, organizations gain greater efficiencies, cost savings and enhanced flexibility to meet changing business needs.