10/27/2010
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Fundam ental Design
Term inology and Concepts
Introduction
Design Characteristic
Design Principle
Design Paradigm
Design Pattern
Design Standard
Best Practice
Elem ents of
Service-Oriented Com puting
Introduction
Service-Oriented
Architecture (SOA)
Services and
Service-Orientation
Service Compositions
Service Inventory
A Conceptual View of
Service-Oriented Computing
A Physical View of
Service-Oriented Computing
Goals and Benefits of
Service-Oriented Com puting
Introduction
Increased Intrinsic
Interoperability
Increased Federation
Increased Vendor
Diversification Options
Increased Business and
Technology Alignment
Increased ROI
Increased
Organizational Agility
Reduced IT Burden
Service-Oriented Com puting
in the Real World
Services as Web Services
About Web Services (Part I)
About Web Services (Part II)
Service Models and
Service Layers
Service Inventory Blueprints
Service-Oriented Analysis
Service-Oriented Design
Resources
SOA Book Series
SOA Training & Certification
Free SOA Principles Poster
Notification
SOAPatterns.org
http://www.whatissoa.com/
What Is SOA?
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Listen to the podcast that accompanies this Web site
Amidst all the SOA-related activity that is currently underway, there
still remains a significant amount of confusion as to what exactly
constitutes a service-oriented architecture. Some qualify an SOA
by Thomas Erl
project by the fact that Web services technologies are being used,
while others classify SOA as a Web-centric variation of object-
oriented design.
What has become more clear than the actual meaning of SOA is the strategic
vision that has emerged around it. This vision is comprised of a set of goals and
benefits that most stakeholders fully expect to see realized when they support
and commit to SOA initiatives. However, because the "SOA" acronym has been
used to brand products, technologies, and even projects without a clear
understanding of its meaning, many of these expectations have been and will
continue to remain unfulfilled. For example, the common (and dangerous)
assumption that a solution is service-oriented solely because it uses Web
services has led to much disappointment.
There is, in fact, a wealth of information out there that communicates the
meaning of SOA in detail. The only problem is that this information is fragmented
- distributed across marketing literature, technology specifications, media
reports, and independent research efforts. While there is no one recognized
definition of SOA, there is a baseline of concepts and principles that exists
among all of the organizations, platforms, and initiatives that have influenced and
continue to shape the SOA movement. For any IT professional, project team, or
organization interested in moving ahead with SOA, this baseline perspective is
extremely important to understand because it reflects a current, industry-level,
and vendor-agnostic representation of what SOA is in the real world.
My third book in the Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from
Thomas Erl (entitled SOA: Principles of Service Design) is dedicated to exploring
the service-orientation design paradigm and service design techniques. It begins
with some introductory chapters that leverage years of on-going industry
research as part of my involvement in projects for SOA Systems Inc. This
research has been synthesized to establish the aforementioned baseline
perspective of SOA, and to further broaden the discussion to encompass the
service-orientation design paradigm and service-oriented computing as a whole.
The book manuscript (including the content on this site) was subjected to a
rigorous technical review involving over 60 reviewers from different vendors,
organizations, and professions across North America, Europe, and Asia. The
book ended up being formally endorsed by members of major SOA vendors,
including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, BEA, Sun, SAP, HP, and Intel.
With permission from Prentice Hall, I was able to publish some of the book’s
introductory content on a modest network of Web sites (in exchange for posting
book cover images on Web page footers). The primary reason these sites exist
is to provide convenient on-line reference content for readers of the book series.
It also helps us avoid publishing redundant content in the books, so that each
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SOAPatterns.org
SOAPrinciples.com
SOA Visio Stencil
What Is SOA?
title remains focused on its specialized subject matter.
WhatIsSOA.com essentially acts as the starting point for these sites by
establishing some fundamental terminology and providing specific coverage of
the strategic goals and benefits that collectively represent the modern-day vision
of SOA and service-oriented computing. The last set of pages provide further
supplementary content that addresses implementation technologies, processes,
and other deliverables that are common in real world SOA projects.

Although this site positions SOA within the service-oriented computing platform, it
only hints at what it means for solution logic to be considered "service-oriented."
That particular topic deserves a study of its own, which is why I published
www.SOAPrinciples.com, a separate Web site dedicated to an exploration of
service-orientation.

Note that this site and SOAPrinciples.com are further supplemented with two
additional sites: www.SOAMethodology.com provides a generic set of processes
for service delivery, analysis, and design, and www.SOAGlossary.com is a
master glossary established in support of the series books.

If you’d like to be notified of changes to these sites and other publications and
events related to this book series, visit the Notifcation page.

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