SOA always implemented by web services?

Question

From Wikipedia, SOA is an architecture, well, web service is protocol suite, and a way to communicate different application over the HTTP.

but in the real world, it seems that the SOA is only can be implemented by using web service, is it?

Answer 1

No, according to wikipedia SOA technologies include;

• SOAP, RPC
• REST
• DCOM
• CORBA
• DDS
• Java RMI
• WCF (Microsoft's implementation of web services now forms a part of WCF)
• Apache Thrift
• SORCER

Answer 2

SOA is a design pattern much like OOP.

SOA is not 'web centric' in that is a pattern specifically for 'web services', SOA is simply that, a design architecture that takes 'services' into account instead of 'objects'. A 'service' (in SOA) is just a 'thing'; this 'thing' can be anything from a member function of a class, to a complete working application 10k+ lines strong, a 'service' can even be considered a 'group of services' (much like a web service acts).

As with any 'design principle' don't get hung up on semantics; SOA is not an 'end all', it's a buzz word that got over used and is oft misused (as with all buzz-words in the tech industry). That's not to say SOA is bad (no more so than OOP or a procedural pattern), it's just a tool to use in your repertoire.

Hope that can help.

Answer 3

Nope, web is how a service is requested, partitioning functionality so each unit of work can be requested as a service is what SOA is about. One of the reasons why a lot of implementations have gone wrong is the idea that putting a web front end on an application, makes it service oriented.