Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Book: The Joy of SOX: Why Sarbanes-Oxley and Service-Oriented Architecture May Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To You

"Sarbanes-Oxley is a critical issue for many of our key customers. We encourage companies to invest in IT infrastructure that enables them to respond quickly and inexpensively to evolving regulatory requirements," says Rob Levy, executive vice president and chief technology officer, BEA Systems. "We feel that SOA has the potential to ease the facilitation of compliance over time, minimizing expense and maximizing informational integrity."

Taking a contrarian stance in the controversy surrounding the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), which Congress passed in response to frauds at Enron and WorldCom, The Joy of SOX identifies ways that this controversial law can actually drive improvements in operational efficiency. The book uses a case study to help readers understand how to leverage and use service-oriented architecture (SOA) to meet the requirements for internal controls that are mandated by the SOX while preserving strategic agility.

The author, Hugh Taylor, is a marketing executive at SOA Software. He is the co-author, with Eric Pulier, of Understanding Enterprise SOA (Manning, 2005; Finalist in Small Publisher Awards 2006). He is the author of more than a dozen articles and papers on service-oriented architecture and compliance issues. Taylor received his B.A. degree, Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College in 1988 and his M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1992.

"My goal in writing the book was to demonstrate to readers that they can survive the transition to SOA without sacrificing compliance or agility," says Taylor. "In fact, SOA and SOX empower each other for greater business success if done right. However, the opposite is also true. A poorly governed SOA can cause problems for SOX compliance."

SOA, which can expose critical financial applications to nearly universal access, has the potential to disrupt the internal controls over financial reporting that are at the heart of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Companies that embrace SOA for its ability to cut IT costs must assess the technology's impact on controls.

"SOA Software's Service Manager and SOA's Infrastructure product suite offer unique solutions to a high pressure issue that can help companies build an SOA while adhering to SOX regulations," says Eric Pulier, chairman of SOA Software and co-author, with Taylor, of Understanding Enterprise SOA. "Compliance is the elephant in every client's living room. It's costly and time-consuming. Yet, an SOA, by enabling dynamic and flexible correlation of business processes to IT assets, can simplify compliance."

Book: The Joy of SOX: Why Sarbanes-Oxley and Service-Oriented Architecture May Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To You

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