Previous page: Scope to transform business
As well, reusable services tend to take more effort to build as both current and potential future business requirements are considered, to ensure the service is reusable. But the reusable benefits are worth the extra expense.
The challenge is also to enforce the reuse of services at an enterprise level.
If reuse is unable to occur, then the enterprise-wide hairball that we saw occur over the past 40 years will continue to exist, within a complex multiplicity of SOA frameworks across an organization.
To support a successful SOA project, the services to be implemented should be well used by a number of government departments, thereby providing project visibility and service reuse. Scope the project to produce results in less than six months if possible to help showcase the positive results and allow you to make adjustments to the standards, processes and technologies based on lessons learned.
But don't stop there, the investment and focus must be maintained, as it can take several years to fully establish SOA within government.
Early on, be sure to establish a SOA governance model to help set the standards and manage the risks. A SOA governance board should be developed within the context of the overall governance framework, typically a subset of your enterprise governance.
Some of its goals would be to include facilitation and control of the service utilization across the entire government, oversee service reuse and stop service abuse, leverage infrastructure and resources to reduce additional costs, establish and maintain the high-level principles to be applied, and reduce project risk.
Arguments can be made whether a centralized or federated SOA governance model should be followed. Either works fine, but it should ultimately line up with the existing organization structure. Frequently, organizations tend to start with a centralized governance model and then move to a federated model after a number of successful SOA project implementations.
Finally, when undertaking a SOA project, there is much planning to undertake. Items to consider include security, performance, and service definition and availability. Some considerations:
- How will security be managed as services are requested from multiple sources? Role-based models are being implemented to support this.
- Is the service designed to support the transaction volumes; do you understand the transaction volumes once the service is available across the enterprise? Consider the requirement for an enterprise service bus to mediate between the services.
- How will the service be shared and made available for use?
Ultimately, strong SOA knowledge and a dedicated team should be assembled to start the project and help evangelize the standards and decisions made, guiding the government to a more consistent approach of implementing and supporting citizen-centric services.
Frank Burghardt is an enterprise architect with EDS Canada Ltd. Contact him at frank.burghardt@eds.com
Related content:
Blocks of SOA: Building services with common symbols
SOA: It's architecture, not technology
SOA: Understanding the architecture
Where to start SOA: Identifying the big business driver
SOA at work: Ontario's common components
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