SOA: The Missing Link Between Enterprise Architecture and Solution Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is increasingly being acknowledged as the way to maximize existing IT investment while planning for future growth. As a discipline, enterprise architecture is tasked to ensure Business-IT alignment through architectural oversight and guidance. It provides enterprises with a 4-dimensional model (Business, Information, Application, and Technical architecture) to analyze and determine the right set of IT-related decisions to enable and support business strategies. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is essentially about bridging the gap between the business and IT through well defined, business-aligned services, developed by subscribing to established design principles, frameworks, patterns, and methods.