SOA Basics: Key Concepts
This chapter's answers emphasized the utility of SOA and how to accrue its strategic and tactical benefits, instead of just providing an agreed-upon definition. However, looking at the definition through the lens of the different stakeholders provides a comprehensive view of what SOA is highlights the various potentials of SOA. The DNA of SOA comprises service consumers, business processes, services, service descriptions, components, information, rules, policies, web services, technologies (e.g., registries and brokers), and tools that address business and IT domains.
As you learned in this chapter, SOA implementations are as varied as SOA definitions, and the benefits that accrue depend on the maturity of SOA adoption within an organization. Organizations and executives who expect to accrue strategic benefits of SOA will need to treat SOA adoption as a journey realized incrementally by project (not as tactical goals, where a project might be sufficient). The next chapter answers questions that business leaders and executives ask about SOA.