Emerging Research Themes in Services-Oriented Systems

Abstract

Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) is one of the most recent trends in IT solutions. From a technical perspective SOA, can be considered a method for designing and developing IT systems where applications are constructed from loosely coupled and au-tonomous building blocks. For a thorough analysis and discussion of SOA at large, and of the applications it enables, IFIP (International Federation of Information Processing) has recently established a new working group on Services-oriented Systems (WG 2.14/6.12/8.10). The paper presents some first results of the analysis aimed to identify the relevant trends and shape emerging research themes. The goal is to highlight the peculiarities of each area, the main opportunities, and also some possible synergies with the others.