Style of software design where services are provided to the other components by application components, through a communication protocol over a network. The basic principles of service-oriented architecture are independent of vendors, products and technologies. A service is a discrete unit of functionality that can be accessed remotely and acted upon and updated independently, such as retrieving a credit card statement online. According to TOGAF, under the terms of an SOA, a service has four properties: It logically represents a business activity with a specified outcome. It is self-contained. It is a black box for its consumers. It may consist of other underlying services.
Topic
Integration
EA: Application Architecture