JBOGS - Just a Bunch of Governed Services

What's the next step up from JBOWS (Just a Bunch of Web Services)? Immediate evolution to full-functioning SOA?

Such a leap may be too idealistic, and there are a couple of levels on the way. Jeff Schneider took a good look at the JBOWS (just a Bunch of Web Services) architecture, and said a couple of additional hops are necessary to reach SOA maturity. He even provides a maturity chart to track the progression.

The next phase of evolution from JBOWS is JBOGS, or Just a Bunch of Governed Services. As Jeff describes it:

"JBoGs is the natural extension of JBoWS. Services continue to be funded in a project (and often silo manner) but are designed, built and operated according to modern governance concepts. With JBoGS, a company will most likely have some type of registry / repository solution, lifecycle governance and runtime management infrastructure and practices in place."

Jeff also observes that while SOA can't be bought in product form, JBOGS can, since it requires some infrastructure. He notes that several customers are already in the JBOGS stage right now.

Jeff says another hop is necessary on the maturity scale before something resembling true SOA is reached. (Actually, as you see on the chart, it's not nirvana yet). He refers to this higher state of existence as "Patches of Planned Services," or POPS:

"Here, we're aligning the enterprise architecture with the Services. In essence, we're performing urban planning for communities of services. This is the 'planning' view of SOA typically thought of as a top-down approach. Notice that I used the word 'patches'; I didn't use a term like "Enterprise-Wide Planned Services" - the fact is, no one (who keeps their job) will do this across the enterprise. We'll cut up domains (or patches) and plan one area at a time."

Makes a lot of sense so far. Again, note Jeff left the top tier ambiguous. Jeff says we're not ready to worry about this yet, since most of us are working on the JBOWS-to-JBOGS transition. Anyone care to take a swipe at the what that top tier should represent, if not yet true SOA?