The SOA Practical Guide supports optimizing an EA Team's method to support an architecture based on services, which mirror real-world business activities, comprising the enterprise business processes.

Building an enterprise architecture around services, business and information services, supports enterprise agility. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) isolates activity allowing different services to be changes with minimal enterprise impact.

SOA Practical Guide

SOA Practical Guide adapts the best practice processes for the development, management, governance, and adoption of enterprise architecture and applies it specifically to SOA.
This Guide provides specific information on the adaption of TOGAF to develop SOA in the following areas:

• Use of the Architecture Development Method to develop Service Oriented Architectures
• Modification of the Content Meta-model for SOA
• Adoption of SOA-specific general and technical reference models
• Adoption of SOA-specific governance requirements
• Adoption of SOA-specific maturity models

The SOA Practical Guide focuses on services. A service is a logical representation of a repeatable business activity. They have a specified outcome (e.g., check customer credit; provide weather data, consolidate drilling reports, etc.).

• Is self-contained
• May be composed of other services
• Is a “black box” to consumers of the service

Primary Audience

The SOA Practical Guide is written for EA Team Leaders. It is a good example of configuring TOGAF. The advice is useful for enterprise architects seeking better understanding of developing an optimal target architecture.

What happens next

You can access the SOA Practical Guide directly from the Open Group.

1. You will get an email with a download link. The link is valid for 15 minutes. If it expires, please re-request.
2. We will add you to an email list that focuses on being a better enterprise architect. The list gets new free content on supporting change.
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3. You will get an invitation to join our free EA Community.
   • Regular free EA professional development webinars
   • Free downloads, including Conexiam Navigate
   • Free recorded Enterprise Architecture development training
   • Limited time access to Practical EA & Predictable EA material

The SOA Practical Guide is a TOGAF Series Guide and is part of the TOGAF Standard.