SOA redefines governance

By Staff Writer for PricewaterhouseCoopers

Johannesburg, 13 Feb 2008

A services-oriented architecture (SOA) approach builds a tight relationship between business and IT, increases business agility, improves software re-usability and allows a higher degree of flexibility to adapt to business requirements.

So says Angeli Hoekstra, national leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers SA Technology Advisory Services practice, who defines SOA as an architectural business approach that organises capabilities into a set of discrete but linked services of measurable value.

The downside risks in an SOA environment include an overall reduction of the achieved security level in an organisation and higher risks of non-compliance, she says: "Therefore, companies need to revisit their approach to IT governance when they move across to an SOA environment."

Hoekstra says SOA does not require dramatic changes to a company's overall IT governance model, but it does require some crucial changes in IT governance practices and their interaction with operational IT. "A move across to SOA means permanent changes across the company, with accompanying risks, and this requires a strong IT governance mindset regarding security, quality and compliance."

One important change would be to staffing requirements and job descriptions to ensure professional SOA and security practices are entrenched in the organisation. "In addition, across the organisation, IT skills and competencies now become a necessary pre-condition, especially in the areas of software development, systems integration and administration."

Hoekstra says SOA would also impact on IT governance at the levels of policies, principles and standards, in so far as existing policies will need to be changed or additional policies will have to be defined.

In conclusion, she says, although a move to SOA does not impact on the governance areas of communication and change management, this function is mission-critical to make a move to SOA a success. "And on a broader basis, a strong IT governance mindset in general in the organisation is a necessary pre-condition for any SOA implementation."