Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a fundamental building block of a successful business process-driven architecture. To build agility and business alignment into our processes, we must ensure that the functionality that the processes implement is also designed in an agile, modular, and business-aligned fashion.

The IT architectures of many organizations have grown in an organic way through the adoption of new packaged applications (both commodity applications and industry-specific applications), custom-built applications in areas of differentiation, and hosted partner or cloud services. Integration of these systems becomes an increasing challenge with the divergence of the definition of business terms, technical protocols, and location of the systems. Whether these systems provide key engagement with customers, partners, and employees or are just a system of record, they are still required to interact with the organization's business processes...