  Because Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is one of the hottest topics that
is currently gaining momentum, and the number of its adopters (both business
and IT executives) is increasing in a tremendous manner, it is really a must to
enlist important aspects related to it in order to allow these adopters to
better understand the role that it can play in both software and business
markets. These aspects varies from the definition of SOA and key components of
it, different forms of support given by elite software vendors to it, its
evolution history, the relationship between it and web services, the future
expectations about its uses and benefits in different organizations, the
relationship between SOA and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), and
various applications that can use it to overcome limitations related to other
traditional methods. Moreover, challenges that face SOA in software market
should be addressed and discussed in order to be able to see the big picture
and to look for better solutions for them.
