Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: In today¿s companies changes happen very fast. On the one hand more and more new technologies are arising, on the other hand business processes have to change because of mergers and acquisitions, new regularities, changing customer requirements and so forth. As business processes are supported by information technology, information technology has to cope with both types of changes. From a business perspective on-demand adaptation of information technology to business is required. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is currently discussed as an opportunity to better adapt to those changes. According to Gartner's hype cycle for emerging technologies SOA already crossed the peak and is now in the trough of disillusionment. But SOA is far from being unfashionable as it would be expected during this phase. There is still high media coverage and a lot of SOA books have been published recently or will be published during the next months. What is true, however, is that the expectations are getting more realistic and people start to think about the real benefits. This is probably due to the fact that companies experienced, that implementing an SOA is not as fast and easy as the marketing hype might have given the impression. Although the hype surrounding SOA is immense, the concept is still in its early childhood with regards to concrete implementations. According to a survey conducted by Experton Group only three percent of 110 German enterprises, all with over 100 Employees, have a SOA based solution in place. Besides high costs expected from migration to SOA the lack of SOA know-how is identified as a main reason. As the survey reveals 45 percent of the interviewed enterprises have nearly no knowledge or no knowledge about SOA at all. Another 38 percent have only basic knowledge. The lack of knowledge is confirmed by a survey from the research company Quocirca, which found out, based on a sample size of 1500, that 30 percent of respondents have absolutely no knowledge about SOA and 25 percent have only minimal knowledge. Similar results are found among enterprises using SAP software. The results of an online survey conducted by the German speaking SAP User Group (DSAG) shows that 64 percent of 344 enterprises are just a little or not at all familiar with enterprise SOA and only every fifth enterprise has developed a platform strategy. Furthermore, enterprise SOA is still a topic of the IT department, although it would be [...]