Last session for me today at Microsoft SOA and BP Conference was on flexible SOA Governance. Frank Martinez from SOA Software was presenting this topic with his software portfolio. So this was a kind of product session. His company is a Microsoft Partner and has products in
– SOA Governance
– SOA Policy Management
– SOA Security
– SOA Mediation
– SOA Management
And has customers like jetBlue, Verizon, Amgen, Thomson, Ford, and Ingram Micro…
Ok so here are some blurts from his session.
SOA Goals
– Reduce cost
– Increase agility to better align IT and Business
– Reduce Risk, fragility and complexity of integration by improving interoperability through standards
SOA-Driven Technical Governance Challenges
– Lifecycle related concerns
– Operations related concerns
Top 5 SOA Governance Fallacies
#5 We already have good IT and application lifecycle governance
#4 We don’t have an SOA program…therefore, we don’t need SOA governance
#3 We don’t have any services..therefore we don’t need soa governance
#2 We already have run-time SOA Management… therefore we have soa governance
#1 We already have an SOA Registry/Repository therefore, we already have soa governance
Common Inhibitors To A Successful SOA Program
No SOA Strategy, program, organization, people, policies, process, disproportionate early investment
Very little SOA based transformation, socialization and governance automation strategy
Governance Defined…The Blowhard Version
SOA Governance can be thought of as a decision right and accountability framework;
IT Governance mythologies, such as ITIL, COBIT
SOA Governance is most effective when this decision rights and accountability framework is combined with the operationalization of processes and supporting systems required to encourage the desirable ..
Enterprise Drivers for SOA Governance
SOA Governance = SOA Scalability
Balance enterprise needs
Role of sharing in SOA governance
Kindergarten lesson
Sharing is essence of collaboration
Economies of scale
Why sharing is hard
People don’t like to share
It is a behavior challenge
Not ready represented in the 7 layer of OSI stack
Not about technology…it’s about people, process and organization (layer 8,9,10)
How we make it work
Balance compromises
Emphasize sharing as the path of success
Disproportionate rewards for effective sharing and collaborations
Popular Perception of Governance
Costly and resources intensive
The governance implication is that we cannot be trusted to do it right
Focus on striking a balance between governance and chaos
A Framework for Effective Governance
Identify (key word)
– Goals and implications of your governance initiative
– Appropriate structures supporting your governance models
– …
Formality and Centralization
No governance
Self governance
Formal governance
Centralized
Decentralized
Manual versus automated Governance
Don’t just start with technology, also start with your goals and objectives
Start with Manual Governance
In time Automate manual governance tasks
Late-cycle versus early cycle governance
Introduce governance when it can make a difference…throughout the course of various service developments
Treat governance as a first-order concern of your enterprise SOA Program
Shared Contract Management to support late/early cycle governance (SOA Software)
Prescriptive versus collaborative governance
Don’t just assume that people are going to go along with the program, give them a reason to engage in the dialogue and process
Acknowledge and promote the fact that there are separate (but interrelated) SOA lifecycles
Policy versus process
Easier to introduce
Changes faster
Scales better
Products
Takeaways
Technorati: 
Microsoft SOA and BPM Conference 2007 
SOA Governance 
SOA Software
