What is SOA Governance?

What is Governance?

Governance is the process of ensuring that an organizations resource are utilized in a manner in which they contribute to the fulfillment of an organizations goal and it is done in a transparent and measurable manner.The resources can include both people , processes or other physical infrastructure.At the heart of Governance is the concept of controlling how decisions are made.There are a number of different types of Governance:

• Corporate Governance
• IT Governance
• Architecture Governance
• SOA Governance
• SDLC Governance

Why has Governance become important?

The past decade has brought to light several corporate scandals that highlight the pitfalls when decisions are made without transparency and accountability. As an example in the late 90s the corporate IT departments initiated a number of IT projects based on the whimsical notion of staying on the bleeding edge without any clear motivation on how these projects would contribute to the business. 

What are the building blocks of Governance?

1. Precepts
2. People
3. Processes
4. Metrics

Precepts

Precepts define the environment as well as the effects of a decision.It achieves this by defining the following:

• Defines who can make decisions
• Defines the constraints under which decisions are made
• The consequence of non compliance

They can include one or more of the following elements:

• Objectives
• Policies
• Standards
• Guidelines

People

The focal point of any governance system; it is ultimately the human element that makes decisions. Thus people must be aware of the precepts.

Processes

A process within the context of Governance defines the steps in which decisions can be made, enforce precepts and corrective action can be taken.

Metrics

Metrics provide a way to :

• Measure the effectiveness of the Governance system
• Measure compliance to Precepts
• Assist in determining whether precepts are effective

What is SOA Governance?

SOA Governance ensures that a companies SOA IT projects are:

• Necessary to meet an organization business goals
• Producing actual results 

Why is SOA Governance important?

1. Metrics on the usage of services
• Are people actually using the service?
• Is the service consumed in the way it was intended?
2. Uniformity
• Ensure that teams across departments are building inter-operable services

References

[1] Prentice.Hall.SOA.Governance.Governing.Shared.Services.On-Premise.and.in.the.Cloud.Apr.2011.ebookmf.com
[2] SOA Governance in Action
[3] Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise