Service-Oriented Architecture Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise

8.5. GOVERNANCE GAPS IN A TYPICAL ENTERPRISE

While we have briefly defined the scope of service lifecycle governance, it is not easy to actually execute governance at a meaningful level across the combined architecture/development/deployment lifecycle. Let us take a brief look at some of the more significant issues enterprises face when attempting to execute a full lifecycle SOA governance strategy.

8.5.1. Bridging Business Governance to IT

Numerous examples of business-level governance have been mandated in the past few years, Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA being two prime examples. These mandates have had and continue to have a significant impact on the way business is done in the United States, and equivalent mandates (e.g., Basel II and III) have had a similar impact in Europe. As enterprises implement compliance models to support these mandated governance requirements, they often discover that the IT organization is the weak link in supporting this governance. Application change traceability and tracking of sensitive service usage are examples of areas where IT organizations often have difficulty in gathering the necessary information to support business governance efforts.

8.5.2. Making EA Actionable

EA teams are often accused of being "ivory tower" organizations divorced from the reality of day-to-day IT pressures and deadlines. While this accusation is usually unfair, it also contains more than a grain of truth for most IT organizations. EA teams are often perceived as "pronouncing ...