Many articles have already been written about service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Service Component Architecture (SCA), for example, see references [1] and [2]. In this article we'll focus on a freely available, open source implementation of the Service Component Architecture that provides a simple way to implement SOA solutions. This SCA implementation is being developed in the Apache Tuscany Incubator project. The project started in 2006 and is being used by many who are looking for a simple SOA infrastructure. The recent Tuscany SCA version 1.0, which was released in September 2007, supports the Service Component Architecture specifications 1.0.

The folks at Active Endpoints carefully thought through how to support users in their move to WS-BPEL 2.0. This resulted in the ability of BPEL 1.1 and WS-BPEL 2.0 processes to co-exist during design, test, and execution in both the designer and the engine. This lets users migrate their processes at their own pace. I've been burned in the past by products that required a big bang conversion so the ability to support 1.1 and 2.0 processes easily is a huge win.

Enterprises trying to improve business unit productivity and the reuse of IT assets continue to struggle. IT organizations have achieved some success by attacking these challenges with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), but in most cases have still only exposed small portions of the overall IT service portfolio. Much of this struggle has been to deliver a 'just enough' SOA to the business unit to improve its ability to build applications and features to get to market faster, better, and cheaper. And as we've learned, accomplishing this is easier said than done.