Service-oriented architecture, or SOA, is a well-known acronym in the software industry. SOA has made quite a long journey from being a buzzword to being put into practice to solve enterprise business problems. Yet, arriving at a common definition of SOA is not easy. This article too does not aim to define SOA, but explains the concept of SOA. Understanding the concept is good enough to get a quick start on SOA and its applicability.

 The architecture roadmap started with monolithic architecture, followed by two-tier architecture and then came N-tier architectures. SOA is the next step in the architectural evolution.

SOA is an evolution in architecture, not a revolution. SOA is not a completely new discovery; it’s an improvement over the past architectures. It captures and uses the best practices of the architectures that came before it.