Honest and insightfull

This is a great introduction to SOA. The authors focus on the fundamentals of SOA, displaying both wisdom and honesty as they discuss the structure of an SOA, its essential and optional elements, strategies for SOA introduction (from technical and organizational points of view), SOA oriented project management techniques, success (and failure stories), etc.

The book is refreshing in the way that it avoids the vendor induced hysteria associated with new technologies choosing instead to calmly and objectively discuss the fundamental forces driving SOA adoption: federation, heterogeneity, agility, reuse.

Additionally, the authors display a healthy dose of independence as they discuss the merits and lack thereof of over-hyped technologies such as Enterprise Service Buses and BEPL systems. This is clearly a book written by people who have actually built SOAs, as opposed to sit on WS-* committees or implement SOA related junkware.

Other Reviews

• Scattered, Out-of-Date,
• Excellent book with excellent examples
• Useful at an architectural level but not at a development level
• No nonsense, practical advice
• Honest and insightfull