The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach is top of mind for many technology and business professionals these days as many view this technology as an opportunity to lower IT integration costs while improving the time it takes to deliver changes to individual business units. Many stakeholders, however, with limited SOA experience, found that their initial SOA deployments have underperformed or not met business unit objectives. This has resulted in a number of organizations either scaling down their deployment plans or simply abandoning them for a future date.
The good news is that a set of best practices is starting to emerge based solely on successful enterprise-wide deployments. These best practices provide organizations of all sizes with a blueprint of how to get their SOA initiatives off the ground while making it easier for all stakeholders to understand necessary technical and business processes they need to follow to make their efforts successful.
