It is more than 75 years since the story of Frankenstein’s monster first hit the big screen, with Boris Karloff’s iconic character spawning an entire genre of movies. In the film, a mad doctor assembled stolen body parts and brought the result to life in a storm of electricity. The monster that emerged was left to discover for itself that it was not quite human, before heading out on a rampage of self-discovery.

One is forced to wonder whether similar techniques were used to create the bandwagon we refer to today as service-oriented architecture, or SOA. In principle, it is difficult to gainsay the benefits of adopting a software architecture oriented around the principle of services.