Service-Oriented Architecture Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise

2.1. WHY AN SOA GOVERNANCE REFERENCE MODEL?

An SOA Governance Reference Model services multiple purposes. First, it creates an abstracted view of SOA governance such that the model can be customized to the specific governance requirements and needs of an organization. This abstracted view begins and ends with business goals and SOA strategic goals, which help align the governance model to desired SOA outcomes. Governance is performed for a reason, and it is not because organizations love governance processes and oversight boards. SOA governance is performed to help ensure business outcomes will be realized through allocation of resources to SOA initiatives, programs, and activities, as agreed to and governed by appropriate stakeholders.

Second, the SOA Governance Reference Model creates a view of governance that explicitly balances the role of technology and tools with the organization, processes, and roles and responsibilities of governance. Tools and technologies will be essential ingredients in your SOA governance model, but you should not start with tools and then determine what governance challenges you must address. Furthermore, the SOA Governance Reference Model is completely technology- and vendor-neutral. A technology agnostic reference model provides opportunities for all tools that support governance to potentially fit into the governance implementation, but the SOA Governance Reference Model does not begin with tools, does not mention categories of tools, and does ...