ABSTRACT
A service-oriented architecture (SOA) maps information technology (IT) systems easily and directly to a business's operational processes and supports a better division of labor between the business and technical staff. SOA provides an agile technical architecture that can be quickly and easily reconfigured as business requirements change. Services are coarse-grained, reusable IT assets that have well-defined interfaces that clearly separate the service accessible interface from the service technical implementation. The use of an SOA for integration, business process management, and multichannel access allows any enterprise to create a more strategic environment, one that more closely aligns with the operational characteristics of the business. SOA with Web services can better automate business processes because Web services help with achieving the goals of business process management more quickly and easily. An event-driven SOA provides a more lightweight, straightforward set of technologies to use in building and maintaining the service abstraction for client applications.
