OASIS SOA Reference Model. A reference model in systems, enterprise, and software engineering is an abstract framework for understanding significant relationships among the entities of some environment, and for the development of consistent standards or specifications supporting that environment.
A reference model is based on a small number of unifying concepts and may be used as a basis for education and explaining standards to a non-specialist. A reference model is not directly tied to any standards, technologies or other concrete implementation details, but it does seek to provide a common semantics that can be used unambiguously across and between different implementations. The Reference Model for SOA is a lexicon that captures the style of architecture known as SOA. Description[edit] History[edit] Toward a pattern language for Service-Oriented Architecture and Integration, Part 2: Service composition. Toward a pattern language for Service-Oriented Architecture and Integration, Part 1: Build a service eco-system. SOA Blueprint - Home Page. Service-oriented architecture.
See also the client-server model, a progenitor concept A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a design pattern in which software/application components provide services to other software/application components via a protocol, typically over a network and in a loosely-coupled way.
The principles of service-orientation are independent of any vendor, product or technology.[1] A service is a self-contained unit of functionality, such as retrieving an online bank statement.[2] By that definition, a service is a discretely invokable operation.