Service oriented architecture (SOA) could revolutionize the way we think about IT. Why is that possible? Because SOA finally has the potential to make the concept of reuse real. Companies have been talking about reuse for years, but have never been able to transform that talk into full-scale reality. Now, you might be asking, "How can SOA succeed where previous approaches have failed?" Because the standards, best practices and governance models have finally matured to the point where reuse can actually work.

SOA is by definition, an architecture. At the same time, SOA is an approach to IT that can help solve immediate business challenges. And SOA can begin paying for itself quickly. In fact, the number of opportunities for quick return on investment can be surprising. For example, many businesses are unaware of the number of duplicate processes that occur in separate departments and applications - and how much these duplicate processes are costing them. When you examine the costs and lost revenue attributable to redundant function and duplicated effort, you begin to see the value of centralized services over having to manage multiple competing and overlapping functions.