Considerations for SOA Versioning

Service oriented architecture is a paradigm for bringing together needs and capabilities, where SOA services provide an effective means of connecting consumers and the means to realize desired real world effects. The resources accessed as part of SOA interactions are independently owned and evolved but must be unambiguously identifiable. In cases where the resources are changing, the consumer must be able to evaluate how those changes affect appropriateness for use, whether those are changes to the underlying capabilities, the service access, or the service description. This paper presents early discussions on versioning in the context of a SOA reference architecture.