Software Engineering, 10th Edition

18.1 Service-oriented architecture

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style based on the idea that executable services can be included in applications. Services have well-defined, published interfaces, and applications can choose whether or not these are appropriate. An important idea underlying SOA is that the same service may be available from different providers and that applications could make a runtime decision of which service provider to use.

Figure 18.2 illustrates the structure of a service-oriented architecture. Service providers design and implement services and specify the interface to these services. They also publish information about these services in an accessible registry. Service requestors (sometimes ...