Enterprises frequently have to deal with part of their infrastructure that doesn't have the privilege of uninterrupted connectivity. Such system environments designed using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) need a way to manage uncertain connectivity. SOA as an architectural paradigm depends on a set of services providing business functionality. These services may be distributed over different domains or geographical boundaries. SOA, characterized by independent and self-sufficient services primarily needs to handle the issue of data inconsistency that may result from a disconnect in such environments.

Some SOA business applications mandate systems or devices be in sync with the central business database even when connectivity is uncertain. "Disconnected SOA" or "Occasionally Connected SOA" are designed to deal with such SOA implementations so that they can work in offline mode and can connect to the central server whenever connectivity is available, i.e., they can work seamlessly while taking care of data discrepancies and inconsistencies. This kind of independent and self-sufficient nature of services with business integrity requirements needs intelligence to realize an offline SOA.