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.”
