Which statements describe a service-oriented architecture (SOA)?

A service-oriented architecture (SOA) primarily revolves around the design of software systems as a collection of services that communicate with one another. One of the defining characteristics of SOA is that the implementation details of one service are abstracted away from the users of that service. This means that consumers of the service do not need to know how the service is implemented; they only need to know how to interact with it through well-defined interfaces or protocols. As a result, this degree of abstraction allows for greater flexibility and the ability to change the underlying implementations without impacting the consumers, thereby facilitating maintenance, scaling, and integration of different services.

The other options suggest aspects that are contrary to the principles of SOA. A monolithic design structure undermines the modularity that SOA promotes, while the requirement for a single programming language contradicts the flexibility SOA offers in terms of technology choices. Tightly coupled components are also at odds with the loose coupling that SOA aims to achieve, which enhances service scalability and reusability.