SOA Governance White Paper: IT Governance in the Context of Service Orientation

No area of an enterprises operations are as complex as information technology (IT). Combine this complexity with the typical IT shops inflexibility and opacity, and its no wonder that IT governance is the most critical area of corporate governance in todays competitive enterprise. Of all the different elements and processes that make up IT governance, the ones that focus on enterprise architecture are the most important, because architecture provides the framework for the IT infrastructure and its use within the organization. Unfortunately, however, many organizations are struggling with their enterprise architecture, just as they are faced with IT governance challenges.

Fortunately, there is hope on the horizon in the form of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). SOA is an approach to enterprise architecture that abstracts IT functionality into business-oriented Services. The application of SOA to IT governancewhat we call SOA governancepromises to provide the visibility and control necessary for IT governance, while increasing the business agility todays organizations require.