Is SOA an Agile Enterprise Framework? Let's examine that in this entry. The consensus definition of SOA is covered by the SOA Manifesto, here are its principles:

• Business value over technical strategy
• Strategic goals over project-specific benefits
• Intrinsic interoperability over custom integration
• Shared services over specific-purpose implementations
• Flexibility over optimization
• Evolutionary refinement over pursuit of initial perfection

Now there probably doesn't exist a consensus definition for Agile Enterprise Framework, however there have been a couple of proposals. Below are the principles described by one of them:

Focus on people, not technology or techniques

Keep it simple

Work iteratively and incrementally

Roll up your sleeves

Look at the whole picture

Make enterprise architecture attractive to your customers

Making the comparison, SOA doesn't appear to cover certain aspects of an Agile Enterprise Framework. These specifically are the following:

Focus on people, not technology or techniques

Keep it simple

Roll up your sleeves

SOA's other principles are compatible with Agile Enterprise Framework. You can therefore have an embodiment of SOA that is indeed an Agile Enterprise Framework. "Agile SOA" may in fact be quite useful. There a couple of articles addressing this "Agile SOA: Mad Science or Solid Reality?" and "Agile Enterprise Architecture is not an Oxymoron!".

I have got two ideas can help fill in the gap to achieve Agile SOA. Focusing on Web 2.0 technologies to enhance communication and collaboration and keeping it simply by employing ReST.