Establish a service governance organization

Services, which are physically similar to marine services, or are implemented by software agents, are always designed and refined to be reused by as many consumers as possible. This is the nature of the service-oriented architecture: reducing costs, risks, and reducing the latency of building solutions by decomposing and implementing reusable IT assets, which are typically in the design phase of an unknown state. The same SOA governance is no different from data and it governance, and data and it governance are dedicated to designing information models or choosing reusable technologies that transcend the boundaries of a given project. Services must be governed to be reusable: all foreseeable consumers must be able to express their needs, and these requirements are then prioritized and phased, while service owners are assigned and investment models are established.

In the previous article, Stefan Tilkov more focused on roles in SOA governance (1). My goal here is to help you build a service governance organization in terms of people, processes, and technology.

Service Governance Charter (Charter)

The primary purpose of service governance is to gain the benefits of service-oriented architecture by nurturing reusable, enterprise-class services. As a functionally cross organization, service governance ensures timely resolution of problems and conflicts caused by the necessary compromises that are made when defining shared requirements.

In particular, service governance organizations are granted privileges to define clear service ownership boundaries and to designate a fair investment model.

Service governance monitors the deployment and reuse of trans-organization services. A high degree of service reuse, a stable enterprise-level service deployment process, and painless service retirement are indicators of governance success.

Service governance should not overlap with traditional IT governance and enterprise Architectures (Enterprise architecture), which define the SOA technical standards and guide the roadmap to increase the maturity level of SOA, while service governance organizations are entrusted with the task of evolving a service panorama (landscape).

Typically, the role of service governance is passive, and process candidate services are identified through specific projects or at the business unit level. Only when an organization has reached a high level of maturity can service governance initiate a system of Top-down Enterprise Services to identify and license their implementation to be independent of any project.

In any case, the governance organization should be empowered to establish enterprise-class services without relying on the project budget and resource constraints of the original consumer service candidate. Because reusability usually accompanies a larger range, this leads to a higher price tag.

Governance organizations Manage service definitions (they are expected to be managed as corporate assets). It is also responsible for maintaining traceability and consistency of other enterprise assets, such as business process models and reference data models. We'll go back to the reference or enterprise data model in the final part of this article.

Personnel

The aforementioned article describes the service governance activities involved in the role from a service implementation perspective. When an organization starts its service-oriented architecture, these roles are sufficient to ensure enterprise-class service delivery, especially when they are part of an excellent SOA hub.

Role	Describe
Business Service Owner	Directs and controls service implementation, evolution, and retirement Functional scope, service-level agreements with services Effectively manage service performance to meet governance requirements and ensure appropriate levels of reuse Reporting Service activity to governance organizations
Technical Service Owner	Implementing service implementation, evolution, and retirement Have operational level agreements and manage services to meet their availability, performance, and security objectives Monitor services to identify potential SLA and OLA issues Reporting service activity to business owners
SOA Platform Architect	Propose and discuss SOA technical standards with it and SOA governance organizations Determine that the service implementation is in line with the standard
Service developer	Help domain Architects and platform architects engage in governance-related activities Implementing governance policies and recommendations

When an organization matures and many service candidates increase day by day, it is useful to introduce a governance leader who will have the processes and resources to ensure that governance activities are properly implemented and that problems are addressed in a way that is timely. He should be assisted by a functional crossover governance committee and a service library administrator.

Role	Describe
Governance Leadership	Overall management of governance activities from the perspective of people, process and technology Responsible for the service life cycle Responsible for the degree of service reuse This is generally not a full-time role and can be performed by a domain or platform architect
Governance Committee	Review Service candidate proposals Recommended service ownership and investment model Address issues related to consumer demand priorities, service ownership, investment models, schedules, SLAs, and Ola This is a functional crossover team that covers as many areas as possible
Service Library Administrator	Manage service lifecycle activities for associated service registrations and service warehouses Maintenance Registration Taxonomy Ensure that the correct data and metadata are stored in the warehouse Again, this is generally not a full-time role to mix with the architect role