http://www.soamag.com The SOA Magazine is a monthly online publication provided by SOA Systems Inc. and Prentice Hall/PearsonPTR and is officially associated with the "Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl." SOA en-us Copyright 2006-2008, SOA Systems Inc. http://www.soamag.com/I15/0208-2.asp As boundaries within and between enterprises become increasingly permeable, there is a greater need for information flow. This is inhibited by the "information silos" formed by traditional software applications. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) replaces these silos with loosely-coupled services, enabling information to flow as needed, and delivering enterprise agility. This is a case study from ING Card, a division of the ING Group, member of the Jericho Forum of The Open Group. It describes the first phase of their SOA implementation, with services that are hard-wired rather than dynamically discoverable. It illustrates how even this stage of SOA can deliver real business agility, and contains some interesting lessons for SOA implementation. (First published in The SOA Magazine Issue XV, February 2008) SOA http://www.soamag.com/contributors/bio-gpeterson.asp#When:09.02.09