SOA-GovMM: A meta model for a comprehensive SOA governance repository

Abstract

In recent years, the paradigm of service-oriented architecture (SOA) has more and more found its way into many organizations. The SOA principles of loosely coupled and reusable services has convinced decision makers in many organizations to start SOA initiatives. Yet, the lack of proper governance mechanisms has doomed many projects to fail. Although some SOA governance frameworks exist, they differ highly in scope and none of them covers the whole spectrum necessary to properly govern a SOA. In this paper we identify and discuss eleven core areas the governance of a SOA has to cover in order to realize the intended benefit in flexibility and agility. We then analyze and evaluate existing SOA governance frameworks with regard to those requirements. Subsequently, we present a meta model composed of four parts: Service Provider, Service Consumer, Organizational Structure and Business Object. We show, that those four parts cover all requirements for a comprehensive SOA governance repository. This allows an organization to leverage the information integrated in the repository to better govern their SOA and therefore improve the chances of its success.