Service Component Architecture (SCA)

Service Component Architecture (SCA) is a collection of OASIS (a non-profit consortium driving the adoption of open standards for the global information society) specifications, which describe a model for developing applications and systems on the basis of an SOA (Edwards 2007). SCA models solutions as groups of service components that provide services and include references to other services. Functionality is made available externally as a service in the form of interfaces. Service components have properties that describe the specific characteristics of the components, and are used to configure them.

Services can be combined to form composites. A composite is a composition of SCA components that belong together. These components represent a coarse granular business function and form a separate, functional, reusable unit. Composite services can also contain components that are only used within these composites. The functionality of these internal components...