Car-Navigation Firm Migrates To SOA | January 19, 2006: "OnStar, the provider of vehicle GPS systems, plans to increase its applications' speed and processing times by using a service-oriented architecture to remove redundant code and insert a business layer.

By Laurie Sullivan
TechWeb News

Jan 19, 2006 05:32 PM

OnStar is moving its technology platform from Web services to service-oriented architecture (SOA), the company said.

Many of the software business rules that make OnStars tick are embedded in applications. To increase efficiencies and speed processing times, the plan is to remove redundant code and insert a business layer. 'It will allow us to reuse different functions and business processes more easily,' said Kathy Kay, OnStar director of application development and support. 'We will pull out functions to create separate processes.'

The migration to SOA, in part, is to prepare for the increase in business. OnStar is a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Motors Corp., whose plan is to install the service in all its vehicles by the end of 2007.

OnStar began in May 2005 putting the architecture together. The project kicked off in June. The company has plans to move between seven and eight application platforms, such as Emergency Services, Vehicle Services, Business Objects and Billing.
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