Under the SOA strategy, AARP’s application architects broke the core membership system functionality into 30 reusable Web services, and they migrated from a Sybase PowerBuilder-based client/server application infrastructure to a service-oriented model using BEA WebLogic application servers. This initial Web services project took less than a year to complete. Since completing it, AARP has provided the Konnex-related Web services to eight companies that offer insurance, marketing and travel services to AARP members. As of 2009, AARP handles about 500,000 Web services transactions daily from the third-party call center and additional business partners.

AARP has been pilot testing SOA Software’s Service Manager software suite for securing, monitoring and managing Web services across distributed enterprises, and plans to deploy the software for production purposes this year. Service Manager uses the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) specifications that will enable AARP to publish information about its Web services. Its business partners could search that metadata to find and run the Web services.