SOA has been and will always be about uniting business and IT. Therefore, SOA governance needs to leverage a tight relationship between business needs and objectives and the IT delivery of the services and the infrastructure. SOA solutions need to be managed from both a vertical IT project perspective (how well are we doing on this project) as well as a horizontal infrastructure perspective (how well does this service fit into our overall strategy and future needs?).
When done right, SOA governance can help create more flexible SOA environments, reduce the amount of time it takes to develop and manage SOA environments, mitigate risks, ensure consistency across services and business processes and increase opportunities for reuse. SOA management can also help create closer and more effective teams, establish metrics and ways to measure performance and establish broader and better communications between the business and IT side of the house.
SOA Governance Architect
XWebServices Inc’s SOA Governance Architects can assist your company with a vast array of services:
- Consulting Services: Analysis to Deployment
- Sales: Software Licensing, Maintenance / Support Agreement
- Hardware Specifications and Acquisitions
- Hosting
Our phased approach to SOA Governance:
- Establish a Need:
- define appropriate policies and methods for enforcing them
- establish governance frameworks
- create centers of excellence (collect best practices)
- develop operational procedures
- Begin evaluating SOA management tools – Open Source options are available
- Deploy management solutions incrementally
- Monitor and manage the services and processes on an on-going basis
Allow us to implement a strong SOA governance solution that maximizes the value of IT investments, improves communication between business and IT, resulting in efficient use of resources and good project management within your enterprise.
Recent shifts towards SOA have increased the need for a rational SOA governance strategy. SOAs are much more complicated than traditional programming models – effective implementation requires efficient utilization and re-utilization of resources, something that’s extremely difficult without a defined SOA governance strategy. So how do you quantify and qualify the IT or application investments you’re making and define a strategy for control and measurement of those investments within an SOA?
Responsibility
Weak governance implies that the IT or business leadership don’t have clear ideas of what they’re doing and why. Weak governance leads to redundant projects, ineffective applications and IT groups with no clue as to what the business really needs.
Good governance means that you know what you’re doing and why. Strong governance maximizes the value of IT investments, improves communication between business and IT, leading to efficient use of resources and good project management.
Management
SOA governance should include the management of individual service lifecycles as well as the management of the infrastructure that supports the SOA.
Through SOA governance, polices are established around services. As organizations deploy more and more SOA based solutions, managers and developers need to shift their focus from simply developing and deploying services to managing, tracking, maintaining and monitoring services and the SOA infrastructure on an on-going basis. That’s where good
SOA management capabilities and SOA governance policies come into play.
One of the most significant aspects of SOA-based solutions is their flexibility and adaptability. By creating enough process and structure around the services lifecycle, one can ensure consistent development, deployment and management processes. Without slowing the process down or restricting the benefits of SOA, SOA management should be about empowering people and enabling them to create and manage SOA services and infrastructures in a structured and accountable way.
Business and IT in Harmony
SOA has been and will always be about uniting business and IT. Therefore, SOA governance needs to leverage a tight relationship between business needs and objectives and the IT delivery of the services and the infrastructure. SOA solutions need to be managed from both a vertical IT project perspective (how well are we doing on this project) as well as a horizontal infrastructure perspective (how well does this service fit into our overall strategy and future needs?).
When done right, SOA governance can help create more flexible SOA environments, reduce the amount of time it takes to develop and manage SOA environments, mitigate risks, ensure consistency across services and business processes and increase opportunities for reuse. SOA management can also help create closer and more effective teams, establish metrics and ways to measure performance and establish broader and better communications between the business and IT side of the house.
Over the past few years, SOA governance has evolved and matured due to the increase in SOA projects and infrastructures.
Phased Approach to SOA Governance
- Establish a Need:
- define appropriate policies and methods for enforcing them
- establish governance frameworks
- create centers of excellence (collect best practices)
- develop operational procedures
- Begin evaluating SOA management tools – Open Source options are available
- Deploy management solutions incrementally
- Monitor and manage the services and processes on an on-going basis
