3. Real-time such as VOIP is intolerant of any network interruptions and requires high priority for its packets. It puts a heavier strain on network resources than the first two categories and has forced many corporations to upgrade their data networks significantly.

4. Video, both broadcast and unipoint/multipoint, places the largest load on network resources and basically demands its own VPN tunnel to operate effectively.

These resource demands have implications for the underlying network infrastructure. "If you are not changing your network in all this, you will start to reach the limits of TCP (transmission control protocol) as you push huge amounts of traffic of various types across it," Reinecke says. "At some point you will get latency problems, and then you will have to go back to the architecture and look at what you are doing." The last two categories above also require real-time switches throughout the network.

So what can IT organizations start to do now to build the foundations for SOA and prepare their infrastructure for the future? "Architecture is everything," Reinecke says, so a strong architectural program is vital to the evolution of the network and the larger IT infrastructure.

Second, that architectural program must include a strong emphasis on both de jure and de facto standards. "The key thing is to use every project to drive SOA," Reinecke says. "Set a basic framework and define standards, then live by them in every project. For example, when you do VOIP and you have to deal with IPT numbering plans, use the standard directory service you have defined -- in many cases we see corporations using Active Directory as a standard -- then add your IPT numbers to the directory in Active Directory."