In other discussions, panelists cited definitions of SOA governance. "The most accurate approach to SOA is it's really two different things," Charles Stack said. Governance features a macro level, to ensure that the right services are built, as well as a lower, micro level in which services are built to be interoperable, to comply with standards and to be secure, he said.

"SOA governance; you can certainly Google it and you'll find a lot of different answers," said panelist Gregg Bjork, CEO of WebLayers.

Also at the conference, Benjamin Moreland, director of foundation services at The Harford insurance company, cited his company's SOA strategy.

"What we have learned at The Hartford is SOA is much broader than standards and technology," Moreland said.

"The focus [at] The Hartford is on architecture and it's on standards and on business agility. We have never done SOA for the sake of SOA," said Moreland. Rather, SOA has been driven from a business perspective, he said.