Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the next wave of application development. SOA lets heterogeneous environments and applications exist while leveraging existing applications and infrastructure. This fosters code reuse, reducing costs and risks while speeding time-to-market.

SOA is the aggregation of components satisfying a business driver. It comprises components, services, and processes. Components are binaries that do specific tasks. These binaries each have a defined interface and usually one job (e.g., “validate user” or “obtain credit rating”) to do well. A service is simply a grouping of components (executable programs) to get the job done. Example: “process loan application.” The key focal point of an SOA is the business process. The grouping of components satisfies the process, letting the application process pattern more closely represent the business. This higher level of application development provides a strategic advantage, facilitating more focus on the business requirement.

SOA is a long-term IT strategy designed to break down monolithic applications into discrete, self-describing business functions called ‘services’. SOA leverages standards to improve service interoperability (not just Web services standards) and enable reuse of services that can be assembled into ‘composite’ applications to quickly satisfy new business requirements. SOA is not a single set of products, technologies or standards. SOA spans technological and organizational boundaries.