Web Services Objectives

Consider some Web services objectives that are necessary to put SOA governance in place. With respect to design- and deployment-time governance, there are four Web services objectives that we must bear in mind:

• Visibility
• Reuse
• Adaptability
• Consistency

Web Services Objectives: Visibility and Reuse

First, make sure there is visibility built into the SOA. Having a systematic way to find and reuse existing services, and the ability to maintain that visibility in the face of change is one of the key challenges. If IT could simply deploy services, and they remained static and unchanged, life would be simple. But this is not the world we live in. Instead, the network is dynamic: always changing. So we need a way to control those changes. This is a major function of SOA governance.

In terms of reuse, IT managers need to ask: is there a structured way to guide the creation of services? While interoperability is a given, do redundant services exist on the network? How can IT audit and locate any redundant services? The answer, again, is SOA governance.

Web Services Objectives: Adaptability and Consistency

Another key Web services objective is adaptability: is there control, for example, over service changes? Is there visibility into dependencies? What about impact analysis? In the case of versioning, who are the (new) consumers? As policy changes are rolled out, how will they affect deployed services? Bottom line: how can the SOA adapt to all these changes? (Answer: robust SOA governance.)

And then there is the consideration of consistency throughout the development cycle. Is there a way to enforce policy at both design-time and runtime? Is there a structure or approach which will enable us to transform manual rules and guidelines into systemic, enforceable policy? -- Preferably standard-based policy mechanisms?

The answer to all of these questions, of course, is yes. For information on a specific governance solution that accomplishes these objectives, see "Web Services Governance is a Marriage of Two Technologies".

For More Information

Learn more about setting and meeting your Web services objectives. Find out how SOA management can ease your transition from legacy "silo-ed" environments. Register to watch the free webinar, Optimizing the SOA Lifecycle from Design Time to Runtime with Comprehensive SOA Governance from Progress Actional.