SOA Success: Five Actions CIOs Say You Should Take - …

Action No. 1: Retool the IT Department
Organizations need to take a hard look at their IT shops before taking on service-oriented architecture projects. Developers will likely require retraining, and the department may need to rethink the way it assigns development responsibilities.

Action No. 2: Establish an Oversight Group to Get Results
Service-oriented architecture adopters-large entities in particular-should set up a group to coordinate activities. This chore is often described as "SOA governance."…

Action No. 3: Catalog Services to Enable Reuse
As an organization grows its services portfolio, it will need a formal mechanism for keeping track of its software assets. SOA adopters should maintain a catalog of services that developers can consult to learn what services exist, and avoid duplication…

Action No. 4: Monitor Performance
Registries fall under the general heading of design-time governance, software and best practices that help enforce corporate design standards for services. But once services go live, organizations need to keep tabs on them…

Action No. 5: Coordinate IT and the Business
To make service-oriented architecture stick, adopters should make sure their IT departments and lines of business are talking.

Indeed, the services approach calls for close collaboration between technologists and the business side of the house. After all, a service is defined in terms of a specific business function…