Service-oriented architecture (SOA), and particularly its most common implementation as web services, represents the latest stage of evolution in application architecture for the enterprise. Service-oriented architectures are enabling organizations to increase their agility in the face of change, improve operating efficiency, and reduce the cost of doing business—often significantly. In spite of these advances, many organizations with significant investments in data collection and storage technologies still struggle with how best to embrace and deploy the new architecture in a way that leverages data assets. This whitepaper discusses the numerous challenges faced by both large companies and federal agencies seeking to embrace SOA, and details a metadata-driven, model-based approach to addressing them.