Governance at the Heart of SOA Projects

A recent American survey involving 300 IT directors indicates that more than 50% of the respondents had been given the mandate to set up a form of governance for their SOA project, while another 30% are expecting to receive the same mandate forthwith.  It seems that the presence of such a mandate is directly connected to the number of services included in the SOA project - the greater the number of services implicated, the greater the probability for a mandate for governance.

The survey also reveals that the current practices in governance invoke the confidence of all the respondents.  It seems that the main reason for this lack of confidence arises from disparities in regards to the definition of the responsibilities in the establishment of the policies for governance, the definition of these policies, and their implementation.  In terms of suggested solutions, we encounter the consideration for governance and its automation at the very beginning of the project.  For more details, please consult this article.

Governance:

Although governance is a term becoming more widespread within the framework of SOA projects, its definition is not so simple.  The very nature of SOA projects, with its emphasis on the use of distributed services by various business units within the company, implies a form of adapted governance.

Governance refers to the process of coordination which allows for the exercise of decision-making powers within the framework of a project, thus implicating the participation of several business units.  Since SOA projects are often motivated and financed by the ''business'' sectors of a company and that it re-uses services initially developed for other processes, a solid governance, established at the very beginning of a project, is crucial to its success.

Here are some relevant elements taken from a detailed SOA article  by IBM:

''Governance is a defined framework for decision-making responsibilities with the objective of achieving a specific IT behavior.  Those in charge of governance must define the policies concerning decision categories as well as identifying the organizational members having a decisional power.  It is thus about a clear definition of roles and responsibilities.''

Here are five important levels of governance in a SOA project:

• Strategic Alignment: Ensuring that the business vision is reflected in the IT efforts
• Value Creation:  Ensuring that IT efforts are quantified in terms of ROI, reduction of costs and other elements measurable
• Risk Management: Ensuring business continuity
• Resource Management: Optimization of current infrastructure
• Productivity Management: Surveillance of the services