Service-Oriented Architecture and its implications for software maintenance and evolution

It is clear that service-oriented architecture (SOA) is having a substantial impact on the way software systems are developed. According to a 2007 Gartner Group report, 50% of new mission-critical operational applications and business processes were designed in 2007 around SOA, and that number will be more than 80% by 2010. This means that as service-oriented systems are deployed and legacy systems are migrated to this environment, a main concern is now their maintenance and evolution. This paper provides an overview of SOA concepts, best practices for implementation of service-oriented systems, the implications that SOA environments have on software maintenance and evolution activities, and finally some research challenges for the software maintenance and evolution research community.