Service Investigation is the first phase of the SOA Lifecycle. The primary purpose of an investigation is to proactively identify and plan for SOA shared services. This is accomplished by investigating business processes and I.T. systems. When potential services are located, a business case and plan is created to invest in the service.

Service Investigations are performed by cross-domain teams:

Enterprise Architecture, along with business representatives,  divide the enterprise into  domains. This partitioning becomes the foundation for the SOA taxonomy of business services.

Business capabilities and processes are then analyzed in greater detail.  As the processes are reviewed, a list of core entities are identified (Customer, Product, Order, etc.)  Processes, systems, data sources are analyzed and identified as conceptual services. 

For each conceptual service a business case and 'realization plan' is created. Ultimately the SOA steering committee or other governing body weighs the various business cases and prioritizes the plans that should go forward. 

The Service Investigation process is used to create a forward-looking plan, rather than being in reactive 'shanty town mode'.