Dueling SOA governance initiatives questioned

16.06.2006
Does the world really need two separate industry initiatives devoted to interoperability in SOA governance?Panelists from technology companies in the governance space debated this question at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference on Thursday. The two initiatives under the spotlight included the Governance Interoperability Framework (GIF) and SOA Link, each of which is geared toward registries by the companies that began the initiatives, Systinet and Infravio.

GIF was founded by Systinet in April 2005. It features companies such as Actional, Hewlett-Packard, and Reactivity. SOA Link was organized by Infravio and counts as participants companies such as, once again, HP, along with Iona and JBoss. The initiative's formal unveiling happened last month.

Both Infravio and Systinet were represented on the SOA governance panel. Moderator Anne Thomas Manes, a Burton Group analyst, asked why there cannot be just one initiative.

Infravio's Miko Matsumura, vice president of marketing and technology standards at the company, said he would not necessarily comment on why there needs to be two efforts. "Everyone is familiar with our economic system and clearly, competition is something that helps enrich everybody's products and provide choice for customers," he said.

After Matsumura explained SOA Link, noting its focus on governance interoperability, Manes said the initiative sounds like GIF. "Why is it that you didn't just join GIF?" said Manes, noting she herself had worked at Systinet.

Matsumura responded, "I had a conversation with the Systinet guys and I think we just decided it didn't make sense for us at the time and that is that."