Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) brings many business benefits to organizations, especially the ability to respond rapidly to business process change for competitive advantage.

Within one oil company’s Exploration and Production (E&P) segment there is a department called Digital and Communications Technology (DCT). An E&P DCT SOA program operates as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) to provide advice, guidance, and standards to projects. The CoE is staffed by a mix of BP, IBM, and SAIC staff and has established the E&P DCT SOA Method, defining best practice for SOA implementations.