Information systems are complex and keeping them aligned with business needs and objectives has proven to be very challenging having, to deal with issues such as retention, compliance, availability, real-time visibility, complex event processing... in a constantly evolving business and technical environment.

SOA has been touted as a possible solution to these stumbling blocks that often prevent IT to deliver the value that the business requires. However, not all approaches to build a Service Oriented Architecture will give the same results. In his latest article on CIO magazine, Mike Kavis notes:

Implementing SOA without a solid governance model is the equivalent to having an airport without a control tower.