Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a design pattern that promotes building applications as a collection of loosely coupled services. These services communicate with each other over well-defined interfaces, offering modularity, scalability, and flexibility.

SOA breaks down an application into smaller, independent services, each responsible for specific business functions. These services are self-contained, meaning they can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently. Communication between services typically occurs through standardized protocols such as HTTP or messaging queues.

Let's consider a simple e-commerce application with three microservices:

• Product Service: Manages product catalog and inventory.
• Order Service: Handles order processing and management.
• User Service: Manages user accounts and authentication.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers a scalable and modular approach to building applications, enabling organizations to adapt to changing requirements and technologies. By decomposing applications into smaller, independent services, developers can achieve better maintainability, scalability, and flexibility.