Service Oriented Architecture - KeynesYouDigIt/Knowledge GitHub Wiki

SOA does not have a tightly held definition, but some shared principles have emerged.

A "service" has four properties.

• It logically represents a repeatable business activity with a specified outcome.
• It is self-contained.
• It is a black box for its consumers, meaning the consumer does not have to be aware of the service's inner workings.
• It may be composed of other services.

-- from Service-Oriented Architecture Ontology

In this context, a "service" is usually an independently deployed software application.