SOA is obviously the new buzzword of the day. Among the many acronyms, one that is seen very often is "Same Old Architecture." In many ways, this is true. The key differentiator between the paradigms that have been prevalent in the past and this new incarnation of "service-orientation" is that the new definition of services is targeting the business as well as the technical side of the house. Same old architecture - different politics.

There is a tendency (propagated by vendors) for the industry to conclude that SOA means Web services. While Web services provide the ideal platform for implementing SOA, they are not the only option. Everyone automatically assumes Web services whenever the term SOA is mentioned. Well, adding Web services to SOA definitely gives SOA a bit of an oomph, and differentiates it from being the "Same Old Architecture." After all, if you weren't using Web services to implement SOA, what's new about your solution?

While it is true that Web services offer a very attractive platform for realizing SOA, they are not the only technology available to do so. In fact, the main message behind SOA is not the "Web" but rather the "service." The main objective of SOA is to help organizations move toward a Service Oriented Enterprise (SOE). The main problem in organizations that SOA addresses is the ability to use architecture as a common tool for IT and business to achieve a common objective - IT agility.