Promoting Organizational Visibility for SOA and SOA Governance Initiatives – Part I by Manuel Rosa and André Sampaio

The costs of technology assets can become significant and the need to centralize, monitor and control the contribution of each technology asset becomes a paramount responsibility for many organizations. Through the implementation of various mechanisms, it is possible to obtain a holistic vision and develop synergies between different assets, empowering their re-utilization and analyzing the impact on the organization caused by IT changes. When the SOA domain is considered, the issue of governance should therefore always come into play.

Although SOA governance is mandatory to achieve any measure of SOA success, its value still passes incognito in most organizations, mostly due to the lack of visibility and the detached view of the SOA initiatives. There are a number of problems that jeopardize the visibility of these initiatives: Understanding and measuring the value of SOA governance and its contribution – SOA governance tools are too technical and isolated from other systems. They are inadequate for anyone outside of the domain (Business Analyst, Project Managers, or even some Enterprise Architects), and are especially harsh at the CxO level.

Lack of information exchange with the business, other operational areas and project management – It is not only a matter of lack of dialog but also the question of using a common vocabulary (textual or graphic) that is adequate for all the stakeholders. We need to generate information that can be useful for a wider scope of stakeholders like Business and enterprise architectures. In this article we describe how an organization can leverage from the existing best practices, and with the help of adequate exploration and communication tools, achieve and maintain the level of quality and visibility that is required for SOA and SOA governance initiatives.

Introduction
Understanding and implementing effective SOA governance has become a corporate imperative in order to ensure coherence and the attainment of the basic objectives of SOA initiatives:

• develop the correct services
• control costs and risks bound to the development process
• reduce time-to-market

Read the full article here.

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum