What is SOA?

I am not interested in abstract definitions. I prefer the details. Here I am going to give my collated understanding of various definitions that exist on the Internet and pointers for more information on this topic.

SOA is not the same as web services. SOA is a concept not bound to any specific technology.

SOA is an evolution of distributed computing based on the request/response design paradigm for synchronous and asynchronous applications.

SOA is essentially a collection of services. These services communicate with each other. So far okay - rest seems to be all jargon. However, lots of information available on what is a service.