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Mainframes, client-server and now SOA continue a trend in computer architecture - over time systems are being designed with smaller, more modular components. Service orientation creates systems by integrating large numbers of services defined by their interface metadata. Successfully deployed service oriented architecture integrates services into affordable networked applications that are modular, flexible and robust.

This is made practical by integration technology that leverages web service standards that define how services formally describe their interfaces. With standardization come scaleable, affordable technologies like the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). While ESBs can connect a large number of services, they do not provide a scaleable approach to reconciling the difference between services. For the SOA methodology to successfully scale, it must extend to include reconciling semantic differences between services.

The common-model driven approach is a pragmatic and cost effective solution to reconciling these semantic differences. The approach focuses on minimizing developer efforts while creating programs that can be effectively deployed in today's most demanding environments. Today's structural transforms designed with common models and deployed in the integration layer will continue to be needed long into the future to reconcile structural differences prior to semantic processing. Not only is the approach practical for today's needs, it helps organizations prepare for future advances in semantic technologies by establishing a shared semantic service in the infrastructure.