Essential building blocks of a sound SOA environment

Many SOA implementations are evolutionary projects, usually starting with application integration and then moving up the food chain -- web services, ESB, business service and workflow management. Few shops have actually implemeted all layers of SOA, but works under way. Below are the basic building blocks for successfull SOA implementation:

• Service Registry (UDDI)
• Common Message Bus (JMS, MQ, others)
• Common Application Service Platform (Application Servers)
• Common Service Orchestration and collaboration engine (Enterprise Service Bus)
• Data transformation and integration services (Message borkers)
• Common Management and Monitoring Services

Obviosly these technology peices must be complemented by proper orghanization and skillset to put into and effective enterprise integration fabric. So SOA is not just about technology but also about people, processes and best practices to make it successful. And that is why SOA can not be bought or aquired like other products. It must be built, nurtured and refined every step of the way. There is a term that sums it all up -- SOA governance.