Chapter 4. Service-Oriented Architectures

This chapter provides a definition of Service-Oriented Architecture and introduces its key conceptsnamely, application frontend, service, service repository, and service bus. It lays the conceptual foundation for a more in-depth discussion about the ways in which SOAs help address the specific issues of enterprise applications that are covered in Chapter 5, "Services as Building Blocks," and Chapter 6, "The Architectural Roadmap."

Section 4.1 gives a general definition of the term architecture as we use it throughout this book. Section 4.2 defines the term Service-Oriented Architecture. Section 4.3 describes elements of a Service-Oriented Architecture, such as application frontends, services, the service repository, and the service bus in detail.