Service-oriented architecture (SOA) may not exactly be nuclear physics, but at the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) physics laboratory on the border of France and Switzerland, an SOA system is watching over giant particle accelerators.

Particle accelerators at the CERN are monitored by an event-driven service-oriented architecture (SOA) system based on Java Messaging Service (JMS) and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB).

The Technical Infrastructure Monitoring (TIM) system is an example of how SOA can be done relying on Java standards and technology rather than Web services standards and technology, said Hub Vandervoort, CTO of the Enterprise Infrastructure Division at Progress Software Corp.