Organisations that under-invest in
service oriented architecture (SOA) governance will fail to
reap the long-term benefits that SOA offers, according to a report
from analyst Butler Group.
The report, SOA Governance, says that firms are ignoring SOA
governance issues.
"Most organisations deploying SOA leave it too late to implement
effective governance," said Rob Hailstone, an analyst at Butler
Group. "The longer you leave it, the more difficult it becomes to
'retrofit' governance to an operational SOA environment. However,
the effort must be made if the SOA initiative is not to descend
into chaos."
The adoption of SOA provides significant potential to improve
the value firms derive from their IT investments, in terms of
increased flexibility, improved use of assets,
alignment with business objectives, and reduced integration
costs.
Butler Group's report deals with the four major phases of a SOA
deployment: planning, design and development, run-time, and change
lifecycle.
Although most descriptions of SOA governance focus on the
technology-centric run-time environment, this represents just a
small part of the overall governance effort, the report says.
The ideal time for an organisation to commit to SOA governance
is right at the start of the SOA initiative, "by establishing the
design authorities for the services and other artefacts to ensure
that disruptive ownership issues are minimised", says the
report.