SOA Governance: Something You Do, Not Buy

By David S. Linthicum

March 15, 2008 —

Recently I posted a blog entry that defines and categorizes the patterns of SOA governance technology that we’re seeing. In essence, I divided them into two major categories: design time and runtime, with a few shades of gray in the middle.

The posting sparked two major reactions. First, some thought it was dangerous to define and categorize SOA governance into no more than two areas. Second, I was reminded that I am forgetting the people, approaches, disciplines and the overarching process.

One thing I learned was that SOA governance has yet to be properly defined. Those selling SOA governance technology are trying to define it through the press and white papers, but the definition keeps changing over time.

The roots of SOA governance are with governance as defined by the older world of enterprise architecture (EA). In EA, governance is more of a management concept in which a single controlling body defines technology solutions and approaches for an entire enterprise. Without that, everyone would be building systems without a common strategy as to how all of those systems would work and play well together to form enterprise architecture. So, governance in that world is really enforcing discipline within the ranks, and when governance leverages tools, it does so to manage IT assets.

So, SOA governance is really EA governance taken to the world of SOA, with SOA being an architectural pattern. Thus, SOA governance is a governance pattern. This is according to me, by the way. Others have their own definitions, but that’s the point I’m trying to make here.

SOA governance is really best defined as: Creating and managing a guiding discipline around the design, development, testing, policies, implementation and management of core services found in a SOA.

So, it’s something you do, not something you buy.

Here are some other definitions I found in Wikipedia:

Anne Thomas Manes defines governance as “the processes that an enterprise puts in place to ensure that things are done... in accordance with best practices, architectural principles, government regulations, laws, and other determining factors. SOA governance refers to the processes used to govern adoption and implementation of SOA.”

She continues, “SOA is about behavior, not something you build or buy. You have to change behavior to make it effective.”

Gartner defines SOA governance as “ensuring and validating that assets and artifacts within the architecture are acting as expected and maintaining a certain level of quality.”

This time, it’s not the technology

The larger issue is that SOA governance is around what people do, not what people use. We have a tendency to get caught up with the technology, instead of focusing on approaches or disciplines. Indeed, as I start working with enterprises, I see that they are consumed by the technology. They typically made their “SOA governance” purchase and now want to figure out what to do with it. They hate my response when I remind them that it’s about the people, processes, approaches and the behavior—not which SOA governance tool is right for you.

If this were The SOA World According to Dave, I would suggest that a few things occur:

First, we need to better define SOA governance and how it links to EA governance. Having that void now allows a lot of hype to creep in, and the vendors are defining SOA governance as a set of technologies, not behavior. The same issue occurred back in the EAI days. If you read my EAI book, you would see that it has little to do with technology. However, some clever vendors with large marketing budgets were able to commandeer the term as something that defined their technology. EAI was also something you do, not something you buy.

Second, focus on the people and the approaches with this objective: Alter behavior to better provide SOA governance. This means training, mentoring, establishing best practices, and, yes, at some point, even investing in some infrastructure technology to support the behaviors. Technology is not bad as long as it’s used in context with understanding. It never works the other way around.

Finally, the vendors need to take a proactive role in educating those people out there who are leveraging the notion of SOA governance. If they approaching SOA governance with the heart of a teacher, not the heart of a salesman, I think that they will ultimately will lead to more sales, even if it means giving up short-term sales for longer-term gains.

David S. Linthicum is a managing partner at ZapThink. Reach him at david@zapthink.com.

Related Search Term(s): SOA

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