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SOA governance standard goes global

The Open Group SOA Governance Framework Becomes an international standard. Next up: extending the work to a framework for cloud governance.
Written by Joe McKendrick, Contributing Writer

Another big step for SOA governance: The Open Group announced that its SOA Governance Framework is now an international standard, having passed its six-month ratification vote within the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechical Commission(IEC). 

competitiveness-innovation-1-European Commission Enterprise and Industry

What's the big deal here? Heather Kreger, CTO  for international standards at IBM and Chris Harding, director for interoperability for The Open Group, the ISO endorsement "is exciting, because it means that this vendor-neutral, proven SOA governance standard is now available to governments and enterprises worldwide."

They explain its development:

"Published by The Open Group in 2009, the SOA Governance Framework enables organizations—public, private, large and small—to develop their own robust governance regimens, rapidly and using industry best practices. This substantially reduces the cost and risk of using SOA. As an international standard, the framework will now provide authoritative guidelines for companies across the globe to implement sound SOA governance practices."

The framework includes a standard governance reference model and a mechanism for enterprises to customize and implement the compliance, dispensation and communication processes that are appropriate for them. Long term vitality is an essential part of the framework, and it gives guidance on evolving these processes over time in the light of changing business and technical circumstances, ensuring the on-going alignment of business and IT."

This is The Open Group’s second international standard on SOA, the first being the Open Services Integration Maturity Model (OSIMM), which passed ISO ratification in January 2012. The Open Group also contributed its SOA Ontology and SOA Reference Architecture standards to JTC1 and is engaged in the development of international standards on SOA there, Kreger and Harding say.

Next on tap: The Open Group is actively leveraging its SOA standards in its Cloud architecture projects. The Cloud Governance Project in The Open Group Cloud Computing Work Group is developing a Cloud Governance Framework based on and extending the SOA Governance Framework.

(Illustration: European Commission on Enterprise and Industry.)

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