I've heard the word governance fall from people's lips with increasing frequency recently, which is a good thing. Lately though, it seems to me that there has been an unfortunate blurring of the usage and definition of the word governance with another important word that also ought to be on the tip of the tongues of most people involved with SOA today, and that word is management. Monitoring and controlling the overall health and responsiveness of your SOA is largely a function of management, not governance. The person whom I mentioned above probably knows this, at least in his better moments, but fashion is a powerful force. Trust me on this. You may consider yourself an up-to-date person both technically and in your style of language and dress, but I assure you, fashions change. Many years from now, photos of you wearing cloths that were once considered the height of fashion may cause your very own children to turn on you. There is no defense against the younger generation when they sense vulnerability any more than you can convince a shark in the midst of a feeding frenzy to try tofu. Speaking from a theoretical perspective, naturally, my advice is to be prepared for the likes of "Gee, Dad, how could you have possibly gone out in public dressed that way?"
A good response is to flash your progeny a peace sign and beat a hasty retreat.
Similarly, in order to spare our dear readers the potential embarrassment of explaining to future generations of telepathic IT people what an SOA was and why we even cared about it, it seems prudent to review and solidify our own architectural understanding. Let us consider the functional elements of an SOA starting with those elements responsible for the actual creation and execution of services. Later, we will focus on other essential elements such as management, governance, and security, and we'll examine their role in the SOA and their relationship with the rest of the IT infrastructure upon which the SOA depends, as well.
