The "perfect storm" hitting the worldwide economy forces organizations to reconsider everything in their IT strategy. Including their approach to service-oriented architecture. IT departments are asking themselves: What can SOA do for me right now? Is there real value in SOA or was it just hype? Can SOA help me get through the mayhem or is it a luxury I cannot afford anymore?

The SOA & Application Development and Integration Summit answers these critical questions by discussing how SOA and related technologies - middleware, application integration, BPM, BAM, governance technology, application platforms, application development tools, data integration, MDM, multienterprise B2B tools and services, Web 2.0, cloud and others - can help organizations efficiently support the challenges ahead, but also take advantage of the opportunities manifested in times of profound changes.

As organizations realize that mastering SOA is critical to survive the economic turmoil, learning the "how SOA" becomes paramount. The summit addresses this by discussing methodologies, governance, organizational and skills issues, best practices, "how to" patterns, technology and product evaluations and case studies.

But sooner or later the perfect storm will die down. Companies that have weathered the turmoil by building innovation will have a competitive advantage. The summit overviews emerging IT paradigms and technologies that will help organizations benefit from the new cycle of growth by analyzing topics like social software, cloud computing, XTP and event processing.

IT organizations attending the SOA Health Check will be better equipped for the navigation through the troubled waters so that they can see the land before their competitors.