The primary goal of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is to align the business world with the world of information technology (IT) in a way that makes both more effective. SOA is a bridge that creates a symbiotic and synergistic relationship between the two that is more powerful and valuable than anything that we've experienced in the past. Moreover, SOA is about the business results that can be achieved from having better alignment between the business and IT. This paper introduces the SOA Foundation as defined by IBM and explains IBM's view of what Service- Oriented Architecture is about. It also provides a high-level description of the architecture with a focus on its lifecycle model, logical architecture, programming model, and physical architecture. It goes on to provide some insight to the roadmaps for becoming a SOA-enabled enterprise and the role of SOA Governance in making SOA operational in your enterprise. It also acts as a guide to a wealth of SOA-related resources.

http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/webservices/ws-soa-whitepaper.pdf