Question: Learning about SOA. Is it mostly decoupling by way of web services, one service provides web services to another, thereby staying decoupled and encapsulated? Thanks.

edit: that and maybe a good front end to them like some MVC design?

Answer: 
SOA is commonly implemented using web services but can be implemented using any method of decoupling the service implementation from the interface. These are then often presented to the business in a directory when apps can request details for any service provision that offers the desired service criteria.

MVC is a pattern for applications that could access SOA but I would use the best pattern for your application rather than trying to shoehorn into a single pattern. Just remember that SOA calls are likely to be operated asynchronously.
Here is a good selection of links that challenge the idea that SOA is only about web services, it explores the idea that every class in the application is a service and we can use many different transports (web, tcp, queues) within our SOA. SOA is the methodology you use to build a service orientated application.

Here are some practical examples of how to build a SOA.

I would suggest you read articles by Thomas Erl and Roger Sessions, this will give you a firm handle on what SOA is all about.

[SOA Design Pattern](http://hubpages.com/_1k9ore6as3b3m/hub/ASP-NET-MVC-Patterns)

[Achieving integrity in a SOA](http://hubpages.com/_1k9ore6as3b3m/hub/Achieving-Non-Functional-Requirements-for-a-Service-Oriented-Software-Platform-Integrity)

[Why your SOA should be like a VW Beetle](http://hubpages.com/_1k9ore6as3b3m/hub/Why-your-Service-Orientated-Architecture-SOA-needs-to-be-like-a-VW-Beetle)

[SOA explained for your boss](http://hubpages.com/_1k9ore6as3b3m/hub/soa-with-wcf)

[Building a SOA](http://hubpages.com/_1k9ore6as3b3m/hub/Building-Service-Orientated-Architecture)

[WCF Service Performance](http://hubpages.com/_1k9ore6as3b3m/hub/WCF-Service-Performance)

Choosing a presentation pattern for a new or enterprise web development is a daunting task, in my opinion there are only three; View Model, Model-View-Presenter (MVP) or ASP.NET MVC (a Model2 derivative).

You can read the full article here [ASP.NET MVC Patterns](http://hubpages.com/_1k9ore6as3b3m/hub/ASP-NET-MVC-Patterns)