Effective SOA governance

Most organizations start down the road to a service-oriented architecture with a pilot project, but it's a long way from the success of an isolated SOA project to a major initiative that spans departments. Moving beyond the pilot means involving more cultures, and that changes everything. It's not the technical parts of a major IT initiative that are the most difficult, it's the economics and politics--which is where good governance starts. Governance deals with patterns of interaction, acceptable standards, and the creation of communication channels. Done right, governance also aligns the incentives in the organization with the goals of SOA and sets up SOA support structures. Don't think of SOA governance in terms of project planning and funding, but rather, in terms of technical governance--policies, interoperability frameworks, and reference architectures. The most important thing to get right in the governance process is to establish the communication patterns that will create, approve, and propagate these artifacts. That involves using the appropriate governance tool at every phase. And the enforcement mechanisms you build into governance are crucial. Finally, the governance process you create must match the culture of your organization.

Learn more about SOA and governance:
- read the article at CIO Canada

ALSO:
- read this on SOA governance
- this about taking it slow with SOA deployments
- this on the four stages of successful SOA
- this on getting started with SOA
- and this on getting the most out of SOA