SOA defines a type of architecture for building business applications as a set of loosely coupled components or "services" that are linked together via business processes.

SOA provides the foundation for a new kind of business agility, cost-effectively allowing IT to be more responsive to business requirements while improving application development, deployment, and on-going support.

With SOA, IT departments can:

• Reduce integration expense
• Increase asset reuse
• Improve business visibility
• Enhance business agility
• Mitigate regulatory risk