Service-oriented computing is emerging as a new paradigm based on  autonomous, platform-independent computational entities (called  services)  that can be described, published and categorised, and  dynamically discovered and assembled for developing massively  distributed, interoperable, evolvable systems and applications.

The  widespread success that this paradigm is knowing today can be  witnessed by the effort and resources that many large companies are  investing to promote service delivery on a variety of computing  platforms, mostly through the Internet in the form of Web services.

Tomorrow, the expectation is that there will be a plethora of new  services supporting e-government, e-business, e-science, and many  other areas, promoting a rapid evolution of the Information Society.