Patent ID: 8898285

Claim:
A method of reporting dependency information for a service oriented architecture (SOA) system, the method comprising: receiving version information indicating a version update for a first web service executable within a SOA system, wherein the first web service comprises one of a plurality of web services of the SOA system that execute on a plurality of computing devices operating within a network, wherein the version information includes information specifying one or more differences between the first web service after the version update and the first web service before the version update, and wherein each of the web services provides a respective software interface to exchange data over the network via one or more messaging protocols; accessing, by a version control service, a database that stores dependency information for a second web service executable within the SOA system, wherein the dependency information specifies that the respective software interface of the second web service invokes the respective software interface of the first web service to exchange data over the network with the first web service; determining, by the version control service based on the dependency information stored in the database and on the version information, that the version update for the first web service will affect the exchange of data with the second web service to cause a specific change of operation of the second web service if the version update is executed within the SOA system; and providing a user with a representation of the dependency information and at least one representation of the specific change of operation of the second web service.