Composite applications based upon service-oriented architectures (SOAs) can provide tremendous flexibility. Properly designed, they offer high levels of business agility and productivity since they can be reconfigured relatively quickly. The growing challenge for enterprise IT architects, however, is to ensure that all the elements of these applications operate quickly, efficiently, and securely. This requires that you deploy a pervasive, reliable network.

Network-based services provided by Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) can serve to enable, enhance, and enrich the performance, security, and end-user experience of your SOA-based applications.

Composite applications help you build new capabilities quickly from existing components, allowing you to accelerate business processes and break down the barriers to effective collaboration. Applications built using network services are more powerful than those built without taking advantage of the network; a key component to achieving business agility.