Governing SOA

In our latest survey of developers actively working on SOA projects, a full two-thirds of them had implemented a formal SOA governance structure or planned to do so within the next two years. The puzzling thing would seem to be the one-third who had no formal SOA governance plans, until we stop and think about how nebulous "SOA governance" is anyway, and how it means different things to different people.

Most definitions of SOA governance describe control of the services in a SOA project, but what kind of control, who is wielding control and how? At the minimum a registry and repository must be maintained for the services, but more than that business decision makers must be actively involved in the process early on in order to ensure that services will be picked up once they are available. Indeed, a continuing communications strategy is needed throughout the life of the project and should be considered part of the governance structure.

Until recently an enterprise review board was the most common type of formal SOA governance structure, but in this last survey - just conducted - automated policy management had become more popular and is now on par. So what will the shape of SOA governance evolve into? We'll see.