SOA Governance – Road into Maturity

There is a general consensus that SOA benefits could be reached but it is unclear how to achieve this. Research shows that the problems with SOA governance in practice are among the major reasons of SOA failures. Based on a literature review, this study first proposes a list of SOA aspects to be considered when implementing SOA governance. By adopting an interpretive research methodology based on interviews, this research paper makes two contributions: it addresses the practical matters that are major concerns for organisations to achieve a higher maturity level with their SOA, and it reveals the importance of the key SOA aspects in building strong governance and consequently reaching a higher maturity level. The expected result should deliver a theoretical contribution to SOA maturity in relation to SOA governance; it could provide organisations with new awareness in assessing their level of maturity and provide recommendations

Towards a Generic Governance Model for Service Oriented Architectures

Over the past years, Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) Systems have been recognized more and more as a serious alternative to common monolithic systems for Enterprise Architectures (EA). An SOA provides a flexible means of effectively mapping business processes to IT processes. However, large IT systems require consistent leadership – IT Governance. For SOAs, governance faces new challenges. A number of different approaches for SOA Governance Frameworks exist, which differ extensively in scope and capability, as most of them are product-driven and developed by software companies. In this paper, we outline and compare existing SOA Governance approaches and present our approach - a Generic Governance Model for SOA

SOA-Governance

Zusammenfassung: Serviceorientierte Architekturen (SOA) tragen zur Steigerung der Komplexität betrieblicher IT-Strukturen bei. Ohne geeignete Kontroll- und Steuerungsstrukturen kann die resultierende Komplexität zu Strukturen führen, deren Wartung und Pflege ähnlich aufwendig wird wie die der bestehenden evolutionären Applikationslandschaften, die sie ablösen sollen. Um dies zu verhindern, ist der Aufbau einer ganzheitlichen SOA-Governance unumgänglic

The relationship among development skills, design quality, and centrality in open source projects

The paradigm of the Internet of Services envisions trade on a global service-enabled internet. Companies, which participate in this new world of services, face the challenges of changing market conditions, new competitive threats, and new legal regulations. Service-oriented Architectures (SOA) provide a promising way to address some of these challenges at the level of the company’s IT infrastructure. In order to guideline an enterprise’s organization and IT and ensure smooth operations, governance frameworks have been established. More specifically, IT Governance and recently SOA Governance have been introduced. The basic structure of IT Governance frameworks is applicable to an SOA. However, they lack functionality or applicability concerning SOA-specific challenges. Current approaches, which focus on mere SOA Governance, lack framework scope and are mostly driven by individual companies. This issue aggravates taking into account the shift to an Internet of Services. We identify key issues and provide initial insights on building blocks for a Service Governance Framework which enables operations for companies in a moderated service network. We discuss service life cycle phases, stakeholder roles, and management processes taking into consideration existing frameworks such as ITIL and CObIT as well as industry-specific approaches from companies such as SAP, Oracle, and HP

Het inrichten van een SOA governance levenscyclus

De verspreiding van diensten in een Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) maakt het moeilijk om deze omgeving in controle te houden. Diensten worden op verschillende plekken in de organisatie beheerd, waardoor de samenhang verloren kan gaan. Het concept van SOA governance is ontstaan om een oplossing te bieden voor het sturingsprobleem in SOA’s. In dit artikel wordt een levenscyclus benadering gebruikt om een praktische aanpak voor SOA governance op te stellen. Deze aanpak bestaat uit het definiëren van strategische SOA doelen, het klaarmaken van de organisatie, het beheer van de dienstenportefeuille, beheer van de levenscyclus van diensten, toepassing van reguleringen en het beheer van service niveau’s. Door het gebruik van een volwassenheidsmodel is het mogelijk om efficiente sturing toe te passen zonder te verzanden in bureaucratische procedures. Op basis van interviews kan geconcludeerd worden dat de meeste SOA projecten – zelfs in hun beperkte omvang – problemen geven op sturingsgebied

An Approach to Transform Public Administration into SOA-based Organizations

Nowadays, Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) is widely spread in private organizations. However, when transferring this knowledge to Public Administration, it is realized that it has not been transformed in terms of its legal nature into organizations capable to operate under the SOA paradigm. This fact prevents public administration bodies from offering the efficient services they have been provided by different boards of governments. A high-level framework to perform this transformation is proposed. Taking it as starting point, an instance of a SOA Target Meta-Model can be obtained by means of an iterative and incremental process based on the analysis of imperatives and focused on the particular business context of each local public administration. This paper briefly presents a practical experience consisting in applying this process to a Spanish regional public administration.Junta de Andalucía TIC-578