In the last years service-oriented architectures have been extensively used to enable seamless interaction and integration among the various heterogeneous systems and devices found in modern factories. The emerging Industrial Automation Systems are increasingly utilising them. In the cloud-based vision of IMC-AESOP such technologies take an even more key role as they empower the backbone of the new concepts and approaches under development. Here we report about the investigations and assessments performed to find answers to some of the major questions that arise as key when technologies have to be selected and used in an industrial context utilizing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based distributed large-scale process monitoring and control system. Aspects of integration, real-timeness, distributeness, event-based interaction, service-enablement, etc., are approached from different angles and some of the promising technologies are analysed and assessed.