Service oriented architecture (SOA) is defined slightly differently by the various vendors that play in this space. It can be most simply defined as “a collection of services that communicate with each other. The services are self-contained and do not depend on the context or state of the other service. They work within a distributed systems architecture.”*

Says Business Connexion chief technology officer Andy Brauer: “When approached correctly, SOA is about structuring code in such a way that it resembles Lego blocks. When a new service is required, many of the blocks can be reused without having to start from scratch. Reusable code gives a business agility and flexibility from the back-end, and allows it to adapt quickly to changing market conditions.”