Two senior software architects from a couple of Australia's biggest banks have joined forces to combat one of the biggest challenges facing enterprise development - service oriented architecture (SOA).

Peter Campbell, enterprise architect at ANZ, and Rob Janson, corporate banking/Internet banking development lead at National Australia Bank, have formed a working relationship aimed at solving common SOA design problems.

The Melbourne-based pair, who started the Enterprise Java user group, have expanded their group meetings to other cities in an attempt to improve knowledge-sharing on SOA.

SOA is a major frontier for enterprise development across many industries, according to Campbell. He and Janson meet with about 50 to 80 others each month in Melbourne to discuss their progress. Both encourage more IT decision-makers to attend the fledgling groups in Sydney and Brisbane.