Service-oriented computing

Service-oriented computing using Web services has emerged as a major research topic in recent years. Strong support from major computer companies including IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and SAP has accelerated the acceptance and adoption of SOC using Web services. With SOC, enterprises can define and execute transactions across multiple business. Companies can use SOC´s plug-and-play interoperability to compose business processes and integrate different information systems on the fly to enable ad hoc cooperation between new partners. Thus, SOC reinvents the way enterprises work together: common tasks in a business process or supply chain can be easily outsourced to external service providers for both performance and cost reasons.