Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA)

What Does Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA) Mean?

Web-oriented architecture (WOA) is a type of software architecture that is designed to be used for website and Web applications. It builds on service-oriented architecture (SOA) by adding support for Web-based software application and services. The key difference between SOA and WOA is the use of REST APIs by WOA instead of SOAP by SOA.

Techopedia Explains Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA)

WOA is primarily a sub-style of SOA with Web capabilities. It integrates and connects systems and users through the global set of hypermedia (Internet) technologies and works on user interfaces and API. It is commonly used as service architecture in social media websites and cloud-based services.

WOA has five fundamental interface constraints:

• Identification of the resource, such as uniform resource identifier
• Manipulation of resources through Web-based representations such as HTTP
• Self-descriptive messages like MIME
• Hypermedia for the engine of application state
• Application neutrality, meaning the application/service created on WOA can be deployed/used on any platform

Nick Gall, a Gartner analyst who coined the term WOA, also provided a simple formula to describe WOA:

WOA = SOA + WWW + REST