IT Governance is Not the Only Form of Governance

Let us begin by looking a bit at the topic of governance: IT governance and other forms of governance. One way to think about SOA governance is that it's the ability to control and optimize the SOA. This is obviously important – but how do we accomplish it?

IT Governance Not Suited for SOA

To begin with, rules and guidelines are required – which can then be transformed into enforceable policies. Processes also need to be put in place to facilitate that enforcement, and perform other governance activities. In addition, IT has to have a view of a SOA model: there needs to be an understanding of all the interrelationships between the various components of the And how those interrelationships impact each other when there's change on the network.

And, why is this? Because we're in a loosely coupled world now, we've broken out of the legacy application "silo" world. We've moved instead to distributed, loosely coupled environments, and this introduces the need for more control.

Bridging the Gap Between IT Governance and Corporate Governance

Another way to think about governance: if we take things up a level and talk about corporate governance -- in which the organization must concern itself with activities associated with regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA,, for example – these concerns will doubtless drive IT governance priorities. Certainly, in these instances, IT will need to make sure that it has an infrastructure in place which can manage and deliver against those corporate governance activities. But how?

in fact, it is SOA governance that can not only controls the service-oriented architecture, but it can also help bridge the gap between corporate governance and IT governance: through the automation of governed processes.

For More Information

Want to know more about IT governance – and how it can work with SOA governance to facilitate compliance and other corporate-level objectives? Download the free webinar, Optimizing the SOA Lifecycle from Design Time to Runtime with Comprehensive Governance