Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Center

Definitions and analysis

SOA is an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents.

 
A more precise definition for SOA, one that is a marriage of ideas from one of IBM's Redbooks and other sources, which makes even more clear:

SOA is an architectural style, realized as a collection of collaborating agents, each called a service, whose goal is to manage complexity and achieve architectural resilience and robustness through ideas such as loose coupling, location transparency, and protocol independence.

Reference Links and Books:

Books:

Web Services – Concepts, Architectures, and Applications,  by Gustavo Alonso, Fabio Casati, Harumi Kuno, Vijay Machiraju

Links:

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1 http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) 1.1 http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-20000508/

XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath

Java Message Service Specification - version 1.1 http://java.sun.com/products/jms/

XSL Transformations 1.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/1292

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/may07/densmore-bohn/

http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/09/30/soa.html

1.    "Intelligence 'Failures' and the Blame Game," War Watch, Orson Scott Card, (http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2002-12-16-1.html)
2.    "Computer Woes Continue to Plague Airlines," USA Today online, Harry Weber AP, (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-28-flying-bugs_x.htm)
3.    Air Force Command Structure -- Federation of American Scientists, fas.org (http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=220)
4.    Systems Engineering and Analysis (3rd ed.), B.S. Blanchard and W.J. Fabrycky, Prentice Hall, 1998.
5.    Model-driven systems development, IBM Systems Journal Vol. 45, No. 3, 2006, Balmelli, Brown, Cantor, Mott. http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/453/balmelli.html
6.    IEEE Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems, IEEE Std 1471-2000, Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (2004). http://standards.ieee.org/reading/ieee/std_public/description/se/1471-2000_desc.html
7.    Patterns: Service-Oriented Architecture and Web Services, an IBM Redbook; Endrel et al, Apr-2004. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246303.pdf
8.    What is Service-Oriented Architecture?, Hao He, Sep-2003. http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/09/30/soa.html
9.    Service-oriented architecture (SOA) definition; Barry & Associates, 2004: http://www.service-architecture.com/web-services/articles/service-oriented_architecture_soa_definition.html, or more generally http://www.service-architecture.com/
10.    Service-Oriented Architecture Explained; Sayed Hashimi, Aug-2003: http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2003/08/18/soa_explained.html
11.    Unified Modeling Language: Superstructure, Version 2.0, Final Adopted Specification, ptc/03-08-02, Aug-2003; Object Management Group. www.omg.org, www.uml.org
12.    OMG Systems Modeling Language (OMG SysML) Final Adopted Specification, Version 1.0, ptc/06-05-04, May-2006; Object Management Group: www.omg.org, www.omgsysml.org
13.    Modeling service-oriented solutions; Simon Johnston, The Rational Edge, July 2005: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/jul05/johnston/index.html
14.    The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction, Third Edition; Philippe Kruchten, Addison-Wesley, 2003.
15.    The Rational Unified Process for Systems Engineering, Part I: Introducing RUP SE 2.0, Murray Cantor, The Rational Edge, August 2003: http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/rationaledge/aug03/f_rupse_mc.pdf
16.    The Rational Unified Process for Systems Engineering, Part II: System Architecture, Murray Cantor, The Rational Edge, September 2003: http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/rationaledge/sep03/m_systemarch_mc.pdf
17.    The Rational Unified Process for Systems Engineering, Part III: Requirements Analysis and Design, Murray Cantor, The Rational Edge, October 2003: http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/rationaledge/oct03/m_rupse_mc.pdf

18 Systems Engineering and Analysis (3rd ed.), B.S. Blanchard and W.J. Fabrycky, Prentice Hall, 1998.
19 IEEE Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems, IEEE Std 1471-2000, Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (2004), http://standards.ieee.org/reading/ieee/std_public/description/se/1471-2000_desc.html
20 What is Service-Oriented Architecture?, Hao He, Sep-2003; http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/09/30/soa.html
21 Patterns: Service-Oriented Architecture and Web Services, an IBM Redbook; Endrel et al, Apr-2004; http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246303.pdf
22 One I recommend is Service-Oriented Architecture Explained; Sayed Hashimi, Aug-2003; http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2003/08/18/soa_explained.html
23 Unified Modeling Language: Superstructure, Version 2.0, Final Adopted Specification, ptc/03-08-02, Aug-2003; Object Management Group: www.omg.org, www.uml.org
24 The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction, Third Edition; Philippe Kruchten, Addison-Wesley, 2003.