Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a high level enterprise architecture pattern. SOA hopes to allow large applications to be built by using a collection of services. These services are packaged and delivered in a consistent and standard fashion, and can be aggregated into applications. Services differ from the existing concept of reusable software components most fundamentaly by being much larger. Rather than a focused set of subroutines providing access to a resource, a service typically encapsulates a business activity, such as debiting an account or reserving a conference room. The process of assembling these services and providing flow of control through them is called orchestration. SOA is not formally standardized, although some efforts are in progress.

The great promise of SOA is that it will allow the organizational silos that have built up over time to be bypassed. In principle, delivery of macro scale services will allow organizational units to retain a comfortable degree of control, while allowing the enterprise to orchestrate business processes across organizations.

Any enterprise architecture paradigm is bound to show deficiencies when faced with the real world, and SOA is no exception. One must be particularly careful in evaluating vendor claims; claims that large scale application integration can be made easy are particularly suspect. JDM Systems Consultants has deep experience in application integration, business process analysis and enterprise architecture. We can provide the expertise needed to navigate this new world, and would welcome the opportunity to help any organization improve its information processing architecture.