Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) brings together features of devices or services which developers make available to others. This approach enables you to combine different services and make them available for reuse. Of importance in this regard was the standardisation of protocols and security, so that applications could be built in well-defined ways and so that the services were easy to use. For example, there are many standards around the SOAP protocol.
These services should offer business value, support strategic goals, offer excellent opportunities for interoperability, provide shared services and flexibility, and be adaptable over time. SOA comes from distributed data processing and modular programming, and has provided a solid foundation for microservices, cloud computing, SaaS etc.
Oracle implemented this in its SOA Suite, which has been widely distributed and was a key component for many customers for integration.
Replacements for this are other types of integrations — in the cloud — including Azure API Manager, Azure Logic Apps, Kafka and Oracle Integration Cloud.
Cegal has been working with SOA for over 10 years. It all began with the use of Oracle Service Bus and Oracle SOA Suite. Many of our customers either have had or currently have integration platforms based on SOA principles. SOA may not be the hottest buzzword these days, but it is been an important step towards defining how to work efficiently with integrations and APIs.