Excessively long winded for my use

It's hard to understand how the same author wrote this and SOA Principles of Service Design (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl) and Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl), both of which had more useful information in a much more compact package.

The only real use I can think of for this book is perhaps to quote in a sales context regarding the benefits of SOA to someone who hasn't heard of it. That said, although I believe in SOA as a powerful mechanism, I believe the claims in the book are less well supported then the heft of the book might imply. Other technical details like the importance of UDDI are largely out of date.

I disagree with some of the other reviewers who call the book overly theoretical: I would not give it that much credit. Theory would call on or reference solid research; this book provides anecdotal evidence at best.

Aside from some potential use to sales folks (perhaps why Sun, IBM and MS endorse the book), I think most will want to pass on this one.

Other Reviews

• Much too verbose, will confuse someone just getting into SOA
• Thomas Erl has an easy to read writing style. Highly recommend this book.
• Independent View of SOA
• Excessively long winded for my use
• Too much theory