Service-Oriented Architecture Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise

9.11. SUMMARY

SOA governance and policy enforcement is an essential ingredient for SOA success. We have shown what governance is comprised of, how policies implement an SOA governance model, and how these policies can be implemented using technology solutions for the major phases of SOA and service delivery (design-time, quality assurance and testing, publish-and-discovery, and runtime). We also provided several policy best practices and how and where in the infrastructure they should be implemented. Despite the relative immaturity of governance, policies and policy enforcement, governance tools, and SOA in general, we feel that the model we have developed will serve to guide the overall industry adoption of SOA governance and policy. SOA governance enabling technology and tools are essential to your governance model and policy enforcement process. As you define and implement your SOA platform, you must then consider its support for SOA governance and policy enforcement. As we have discussed, policies are enforced using a combination of mechanisms, including governance boards, governance processes, and governance enabling technology solutions. A complete SOA governance model will require all of these policy enforcement mechanisms, working together to create an integrated fabric of SOA governance. Automated SOA policy enforcement is critical to SOA success, but only as an element of a total governance model.