Service-oriented architecture has proven to be a boon in the computing world. At its core, SOA provides enterprise patterns for systems development and integration where legacy systems are viewed as discrete business capabilities and packaged as standards-based services interfaces. SOA also typically describes an IT infrastructure that allows different applications to exchange data with one another as they participate within business processes. Over the past few years, SOA has grown almost exponentially in popularity, becoming one way for companies to knit together applications and processes in a flexible, reusable and cost-effective way. SOA separates functions into distinct units, or services, which developers make accessible to users over a network, ideally allowing them to combine and reuse them in the creation of business applications. These services communicate with each other by passing data from one service to another or by coordinating an activity between two or more services.