The Marine Corps is looking for a few good vendors who can provide information about the governance, development, and operation of service-oriented architectures.

The corps has published a request for information April 2 that seeks insight, ideas, initiatives and processes. The corps would like to implement SOA at the enterprise level -- which the service defines as everything external to the Marine Air Ground Task Force -- and as far down into the tactical level as possible.

However, the corps is worried about doing a poor job. "If not implemented correctly, the transition to a SOA will greatly disrupt operations at the tactical ! and enterprise level, increase costs, and adversely effect [sic] combat efficiency," the RFI states. "Because SOA is a relatively new concept to the Marine Corps, [corps] personnel do not have depth of knowledge and experience that is available in the commercial sector concerning the governance, development, and operations of a SOA."