SOAP, WSDL, WS-*, and UDDI are proven and widely adopted technologies and REST is growing strongly, believes a UDDI supporter from Microsoft. But while REST is often cited as a SOAP alternative, Microsoft's Steven Martin thinks this a distinction without a difference. "Does it really matter if there are angle brackets or curly braces on the wire?" he asks.

The SOA Consortium announced the winners of the SOA Consortium and CIO.com SOA Case Study contest. Here are several characteristics common among the winners.

By now everybody has heard over and over how governance is critical to the success of any implementation of service-oriented architecture. Companies implementing SOA must provide the proper level of governance required to achieve reuse and flexibility without negatively impacting their team's ability to innovate and be agile.

WSO2 CTO and co-founder Paul Fremantle discusses the company's new product for service-oriented architecture that focuses on data services. The open-source tool promises to make it easier for DBAs and data experts to get involved in SOA.

SOA is not just for legacy systems but can be strategic for Startups as well. Service-now.com, a SaaS provider of IT Service Management solutions, has used SOA as a competitive advantage.

Let's stop wasting time trying to come up with clever definitions of service-oriented architecture and get down to the business of using it.

With all of the focus on the proper design of business services, business alignment, and SOA governance, sometimes the challenges that SOA creates for quality assurance testers is overlooked early on in SOA initiatives.

Albert Lee, executive director of IT at New York Media, explains how the company's open-source LAMP stack-based SOA comprises the power behind coveted online publication features.

There's more to best practices than architecture. Perhaps the best practice in SOA is for the CIO to get involved and be a leader in making the business case for adoption of SOA?

Don't lose out on the cost savings and reuse benefits of service-oriented architecture because you or your organization are intimidated by its difficulties and potential costs. Muster up a little courage and give it a shot.