Delivering a high-quality SOA requires high-quality data

Federal Times – a leading US Publication – has an article about the advantages and possibilities Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides federal agencies.  The article is called “Improving data quality is first step in info sharing”

Delivering a high-quality SOA requires high-quality data. “Garbage in, garbage out” is still the rule for information systems. SOA is worthless if it becomes just a more efficient way of communicating poor-quality data. To realize the full value of SOA, including agility and reusability, client applications must be able to access relevant data wherever it resides, in whatever form is required, in a consistent and accurate manner.

The commentary goes on:

Data governance is key. Data governance is defined as the processes, policies, standards and technologies required to manage and ensure the availability, quality, consistency and security of data in an organization.

This is recommended reading.