"A key area of focus on web services is security-specifically, how to configure the accessibility of particular services," said Ly. "This is where company policy is vital. Some are pure technology-access policies, others have more of a business sense-based on business rules that will enable or disable the services to the consumer. Simply, who is the consumer of the services, at what time can they access the services?"

Agility, control, visibility

Using SOA to simplify enterprise architecture reduces costs, but also allows vendors to offer new services more easily-an advantage not lost on Oracle, with their large base of enterprise clients. Lionel Louie, director, Oracle Fusion Middleware, sales consulting, greater China, sees agility, control and visibility as major business drivers for SOA.

"One major change in 2006-standards bodies began pushing as the Internet continues to mature," said Louie. "Standards are driving the IT industry toward SOA-while people have talked about similar concepts before-with .Net or similar approaches-these could only be managed at a high cost." Now clients rely more on IT vendors to supply open standard infrastructures-this is one of the key technology drivers, according to Louie.

Industry-driven