BEA Systems, Inc. has announced the 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 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.

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 -- BEA SmartConnect 3.0 uses fine-grained connection  pooling that optimizes the number of connections needed for better  scalability. 
• Flexible deployments -- BEA SmartConnect 3.0 insulates the business  logic within ERP applications from higher-level business processes,  enabling significantly more flexible deployments. 
• Ubiquitous service-oriented solution to connectivity -- BEA  SmartConnect 3.0 extends the benefits of service orientation last-mile  ERP connectivity by exposing ERP business logic as shared services for  use within the enterprise. 
• Minimal downtime and ease of upgrades -- Dynamic routing allows for  easy switchover between ERP application versions. 
• Reduction in cost of ownership -- BEA SmartConnect 3.0 is designed to  help reduce the need for dedicated hardware to support traditional  adapters. 
• High performance -- BEA SmartConnect 3.0 is optimized for high  performance because of the ability to do throttling and message  prioritization.