People sometimes ask what a service-oriented architecture enables today that
could not have been done with the older, proprietary integration stacks of
the past 5 to 15 years, such as those from Tibco, IBM, or Vitria. One such
ability is the greater degree of interoperability between heterogeneous
technology stacks that is made possible by the standards SOA is built on,
such as Web services and BPEL. Although interoperability is only one facet of
the SOA value proposition, it is one that has become increasingly more
important, due in large part to the evolving IT environment, merger and
acquisition activity, and increased partner connectivity.
Building business solutions for SOA requires the ability to secure data
exchanged over a network, and control access to services ... (more)