Oracle Enterprise Repository (OER) for SOA Governance

Oracle Enterprise repository (OER) is one of the tools from Oracle for SOA governance. This can be setup to authenticate users against the corporate LDAP to allow access for all authenticated users . In OER all artifacts are regarded as Assets. Once logged into OER, users can do the following:

• Search for existing asset to re-use
• Propose and submit new assets

A simple to use web interface allows users to search assets in OER based on simple and advance criteria. This tool comes with a pre-configured set of Asset Types well suited for governance of different SOA artifacts. The Asset Type defines the object model for different types of SOA artifacts like Service, WSDL, XSD, XQuery, Application etc. New asset types can be added and existing ones can be modified and extended to adapt to the enterprise needs. Asset Type Metadata helps to capture meta data for different assets. For example metadata for a 'Service'  asset type includes information about the service labels, version, transport protocol, interface definition, service end-point, messaging patterns, contacts, documentations, support information, categorizations , security requirements, packaging information, estimated time to re-use etc.  OER also allows to build the relationship between different assets.  Information about the functional and performance test results, user guide, design doc etc. can also be published in OER. Availability of all these information about any asset through an easy to use searchable interface can help maximize asset re-use.  The taxonomy information helps to categorize services based on a pre-ordained classification system based on their alignment with business, technology platforms service types etc. Asset relationship helps to track dependencies and simplifies change management.

Oracle Enterprise Repository makes service life-cycle more evident as new services are added to the repository and promoted to various life-cycle statuses. Support and contact information stored can prove to be handy in case of any operational or development support required for using the asset. OER also helps to track the progress and value of SOA initiatives by providing metrics of services that are being planned, in development and ones already in production. Operational information related to the service consumer, helps to track the re-use of services and calculate savings on SOA investments due to re-use. This is something which any senior management folks would be interested in.

Users can propose and submit new assets into OER. This tool comes with a simple to use and pre-configured workflow that allows to accept or reject, review and approve assets.  The workflow can also be customized. Preconfigured user roles like User, Advanced Submitter, Registrar helps to control the privileges and access rights of the user by assigning a role to them. The Automated harvesting capabilities of OER helps to reduce the time to harvest assets at design time into OER compared to manual submission. However, there are some limitations that needs to be addressed before Harvester can be effectively used for automated harvesting of assets. 

With all these features OER can be effectively used to implement a major part of SOA governance and take an enterprise to its next level of SOA maturity.