The OTN ArchBeat Podcast returns from a brief summer hiatus with a three-part conversation about IT architecture and governance. My guests for this conversation are Eric Stephens , an Oracle Enterprise architect and a frequent guest on this program. Joining Eric on the panel is Tim Hall , Senior Director of product management for the Oracle Enterprise Repository, Oracle Service Registry, and Oracle Application Integration Architecture. Tim made his first appearance on ArchBeat as panelist on the recent program featuring Thomas Erl.

The Conversation

• Listen to Part 1:
  Why it's important to revive the dormant conversation about IT governance.
• Listen to Part 2 (Sept 19):
  Balancing functional, technical, operational requirements to meet the challenge of defining appropriate governance "guardrails."
• Listen to Part 3 (Sept 26):
  Bringing IT architecture out of the ivory tower to make governance a less intimidating, more collaborative process.

Additional Resources

• Leveraging Governance to Sustain Enterprise Architecture Efforts, an Oracle white paper by Eric Stephens.
• SOA, Cloud, and Service Technologies, a transcript of an ArchBeat interview with Thomas Erl, Tim Hall, and Demed L'Her, in which Tim says the following about governance:
  

  "For a long time people have argued that SOA governance is sort of an awkward name, no one wanted to be audited. There's 50% of the world that think, yes, we're going to have to tops down initiative to address this and there's 50% of the world that says that it feels like a heavy weight process that I want no part of. So what I think we should do is change the name…"