Software Engineering Institute

This document was developed under the Net-Centric Operations Industry Forum's (NCOIF or "the Forum") charter to provide industry advisory services to the Department of Defense (DoD), Chief Information Officer (CIO). It presents a list of industry best practices in achieving Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The introduction lays the groundwork for the discussion by establishing terminology and definitions and relates this topic to the DoD transformation challenge of net-centricity. The best practices listed in the body of the document are the result of numerous industry inputs and analysis of public sources. The Forum will gladly share any of those source documents upon request but framed this paper in terms of a vendor-neutral dialogue. The wealth of information on SOA coupled with the need to publish the Forum's findings within a reasonable timeframe suggest that this report is simply framing the starting point for continuing assessment. The rapidly developing nature of both technology and best practices provides fertile ground for continuing this effort in a regular, logically organized pattern. Moreover, the initial findings indicate much more work is needed that will fall into the area of other working groups, such as Information Assurance, giving opportunity for collaboration and discovery of intersections and adjacent possibilities. In sum, this document represents the first iteration of a conversation and is neither a complete nor exhaustive coverage of the evolving subject of SOA.