A set of components, design patterns, guidelines, and principles for execution of business processes as a continuously evolving network of value added services. SOA relies on an integrated framework that includes a repeatable modeling and development methodology, open standards, best practices, a reference architecture, and a configurable run-time architecture to provide semantically reconciled model-time and run-time environments for an agile enterprise. SOA advocates use of a loosely coupled Architecture that does not require procedural coding to “compose” applications and transform business objects. Technical components of a SOA include use of a multi-Layer, multi-tier distributed Architecture, and Extensible Markup Language (XML) format for messages and objects.