Section 6.5. Conclusion

6.5. Conclusion

In the previous chapter, we introduced four SOA layers that serve as a conceptual construct that enables the efficient organization of enterprise application landscapes.

Based on the concept of SOA layers, we distinguished three expansion stages that define the level of sophistication an SOA has achieved. The first expansion stagefundamental SOAdelivers a maintainable business infrastructure that provides the application landscape with flexible building blocks containing the business logic and data of the enterprise. While the integration of these building blocks is still allocated at the application frontend in the first expansion stage, the second stagenetworked SOAencapsulates this kind of complexity in an intermediary layer. Finally, the process-enabled SOA depicts the truly SOA-enabled enterprise, leveraging support for the business processes of the enterprise in process-centric services.