Service-Oriented Architecture and Its Implications for Governance

by Tom Welsh

SOA has been the hottest topic in software for the past two or three years, and it looks as if it will be enjoying that status for the indefinite future. This is because SOA is seen not just as a new software architecture, but as a powerful way of reorganizing business enterprises. SOA experts stress the importance of breaking up the monolithic control that central IT has usually exercised over corporate computing in order to put separate divisions, lines of business, and departments in charge of their own services. This is all very well, but if SOA is the royal road to better alignment between business and IT, then exactly how will this alignment come about?

In this issue of Cutter IT Journal, we explore the implications of SOA adoption for corporate and IT governance. Find a roadmap for transforming an unstructured legacy application landscape into an enterprise SOA. Discover how managing business assets using Universal Business Identifiers (UBIs) will cause new development and initiatives to concentrate around business assets that deliver real value. SOA has been called "the answer to an enterprise architect's dream" -- join us to learn how to keep it from becoming a nightmare in your organization.