While integrating the county's legacy systems and more efficiently merging data are the primary motivators for Feuer's move to Web services, he is determined to examine every step closely before taking it. "We're not just accepting on face value that everything is hunky-dory with the mainframe legacy systems," he says. "If we see there's a problem and it might be beneficial to just do away with the mainframe, then we'll make that recommendation."

Still, Web services is proving to be the most efficient and expedient platform with which to get existing data and processes online. "A lot of these agencies have a lot of legacy systems, and they want to expose [data] to the Internet, and we think Web services is the fastest and most efficient way to do it," Feuer says. The ability to develop once and use many times is another compelling aspect. "A lot of the Web services created for one department can be used and shared with other departments," he adds. The property tax application is a good example of one with appeal to numerous county government agencies.

Using Web services to extract processes from its mainframe systems is helping Miami-Dade County get more bang from its mainframe bucks. "It extends the life of legacy systems. There are a lot of business processes embedded in those legacy systems. To rewrite those would take many years," says Feuer. "We have a lot of very good legacy systems, and we want to leverage those as much as possible."