Context: Several examples of successful migrations of systems to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are presented in the literature. Some of the approaches also try to structure the process of migration to SOA. The reported migration attempts underline the role of architecture of migrated system, but they do not explore the architectural patterns applied in architecture of migrated systems while proper usage of patterns may simplify and improve quality of migration. Objectives: This work is aimed at elaborating guidelines that support migration from a system that is based on a chosen architectural pattern towards a system based on Service Oriented Architecture. Methods: Literature review is used as a basic method in the initial steps of the research, that is during investigation of existing techniques of migration to SOA, establishing procedure for selection of the migrated pattern and identifying building blocks of the target architecture. Results of the literature reviews are further analyzed in order to select the migrated architectural pattern and to elaborate the target architecture. The guidelines for migration are the result of the synthesis of the analyzed information. Results: The migration is realized as a translation between two pattern languages: the first pattern language describes the chosen architectural pattern–Model–View–Controller and the second pattern language describes SOA target architecture, expressed using SOA architectural patterns. The translation is defined by a set of migration guidelines. The approach is also illustrated with migrating an example student project. Conclusion: The study shows that the usage of an architectural pattern during migration allows to define the migration in a simple, structured and precise way using guidelines that represent a set of subsequent well defined steps that should be applied in order to migrate a specific type of legacy system.