Service Oriented Architecture

This refers to a technique for designing complex applications where key elements of the functionality are separated into modules (or 'services'). These are semi-independent from the core system and can potentially be called by other applications in a client/server model. The biggest single benefit of SOA is scalability. Since the service is independent of the main application it can be scaled up to support increased demand without any specific modifications being required. It also eases functional enhancements since one service can be replaced by another far more easily.

In Digital Asset Management systems, it is common to have dedicated services for a variety of intensive features, in particular asset manipulation and processing, but also searching, indexing, metadata importing/exporting, business intelligence and a range of specialist requirements like zipping big collections of files. SOA is also beneficial for application integration since third party systems can use features on a selective basis and connect into them in the same fashion as the central DAM system.