Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies®

Chapter 15. The Repository and the Registry

In This Chapter

• Governance revisited

• Perpetually changing software

• Taking a little R 'n R

As the title of this chapter makes clear, the time has now come for us to discuss the SOA repository and the SOA registry — and their relationship to each other — in greater detail. You may remember that we had a lot to say about the registry in Chapter 8, and we mentioned then that it was close friends with the SOA repository. But before we can go down that path, we need to revisit our old friend governance. You may remember that we introduced the concept of governance back in Chapter 11, but now that we're introducing still more service oriented architecture components, it's time to expand a bit on that discussion.

Governance has become a big word in IT. It didn't use to be. In fact, if we sent you back in time ten years and told you to nose around a few major IT departments, you'd never hear the word "governance" mentioned. My, how times change.

If any IT hotshot from ten years ago were to ask you, in your time-traveling persona, what governance actually was (or will be), you could tell him or her that IT governance involves managing the relationships and processes that direct and control an organization's use of IT resources so that such resources can better meet the organization's goals.

In case you're wondering how governance differs from IT management — "Surely that's the same thing," we hear you say — we can only say that it really isn't the same ...