Service-oriented Architecture. A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services (Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I hesitate to say anything negative about this book, given the glowing reviews by most other readers. Many of those reviewers appear to be experienced in SOA deployment. I am fairly new to the field, though I have a decent grasp of XML and Web services. I wanted a good guide on how SOA was an advance over a loose collection of Web services.

This book is chock full of information on the standards for Web services and the ingredients for SOA. Part one, on XML and second-generation WS specs, is excellent.

However, potential readers should know that this is an overview of these specs, not a tutorial or implementation guide. Certainly too many of these specs exist to give details of implementation, but if you're looking for a general guide to the specs, this is a good text for that.

Things get more muddled after that. I hoped that the chapters in Part II on integrating Web services into applications would be a practical guide to this task. I found it difficult to relate the abstract discussion and diagrams to how one would actually perform this difficult chore.

Later on, the book suddenly introduces EAI as if the reader would naturally know this technology. It uses EAI and similar concepts in more rather abstract discussion of principles of SOA. The discussion features few real-world examples about how the principles would translate into action.

The chapters toward the end on best practices are quite good and worth reading. Again, though, the discussion avoids getting into examples and details.

I kept having the feeling that the bottom line was that, to properly implement SOA, you need a consultant who knows the field well...and that the author's firm might be happy to provide that consulting. The SOA adoption methodology described in the book was basically what that firm follows, I gathered.

I suppose in a sense, the "field guide" name is appropriate here. A field guide to birds, for example, typically lets you identify the species so that you can say, "I saw this bird". It doesn't tell you the life history of the species, how to conserve it, or its ecological relationships to other species. This book has a similar role: it enables you to recogize SOA acronyms and understand the basic process for how an SOA operates and might be implemented. It will not give you enough to actually go out and build an SOA or fully evaluate SOA-related software. Perhaps the other book in the series provides more examples and completes the picture, though to get know-how on actual implementation I suspect you'd need more material.

If you think about the software development world as architects and engineers. Where architects take a very high level view of the world and don't get into fine grained implementation details. Then if you consider yourself this kind of architect, you will get a lot out of this book.

Though the book is fairly long (~500 pages) the depth of the content is still at the 'field guide' level. This means that the book focuses more on understanding the components of SOA at a holistic level without getting too deep into implementation details.

The first chapter of the book does delve into the basics of the XML core technologies (XML, XML validation, XSL, etc.). After that the book stays at the high level, describing most of the concepts with graphics that do an excellent job showing the document flow between systems.

I recommend this book to architects involved with XML based systems integration projects. I also recommend the book for engineers involved with these types of projects because they will benefit from the high level overview of the entire range of XML technologies.

I had high expectations when I ordered this book, and just having completed it, I felt like taking the time to share my opinions. I've read numerous computer books on various subjects. Most follow predictable form, and there's nothing wrong with that. These types of books meet an educational requirement and the more predictable they are the easier it is for readers to use them. This, however, is not such a book, and nor does it claim to be. This book calls itself a Field Guide - a guide you would want with you when you are in "the field". As such, it is structured with quick reference in mind. Not the type of quick reference guide you'd use to look up language syntax or reserved characters. This is a reference guide that you look to for cold, hard advice. If you are struggling with the many new issues that SOA and XML are hitting all of us with, you would use this guide to look for answers. And, on that basis, it really delivers. The author clearly has a depth of expertise that would cost an arm and a leg right now to hire. He has spilled his guts with this book, sharing not only product knowledge but also insights. The real benefit of this book is the insight, because that represents a body of knowledge gained from experience. That type of knowledge is hard to come by, which is why I can see this guide becoming valuable to organizations who lack experience with the whole XML/WS/SO field. I'm reluctant to give any book five stars. I feel that rating should be reserved for books that achieve unparalleled levels of excellence. I gave it four stars, because I feel this book is very, very good. It sets out to cover a cross section of organizational and technical areas that are most likely to be impacted by the arrival of SOA and all that comes with it. It blends strategic advice with best practices and an abstract exploration of common architecture blueprints. What the author has chosen to cover is appropriate and the manner in which he communicates the subject matter is efficient. I have no quarrels with recommending this guide, and I know I will continue to reach for it as new issues come my way in the future. If I had to change one thing about this book, it would be the location of the SOA modeling tutorials. For some reason they were placed at the end of the book, away from the other tutorials. I think a knowledge of SOA fundamentals up-front would help readers better understand the rest of the guide. Finally, I'd like to comment on what this book is not. This book does not talk about specific programming languages or middleware products. It sticks to standards, common architecture and general best practices. I find that approach appropriate for the world of SOA. SOA is fundamentally about neutral standards and platform independence. That makes this book also useful for just about any environment. Regardless of what vendor platform you are currently subscribing to, most of the information expressed in this book will be relevant, or, at the very least, of interest. This is equally useful from a learning perspective. Learning about XML/WS/SOA, middleware and integration without having to learn about the specific characteristics or unique features of commercial products gives you a reference point and plenty of ammunition for when you actually need to assess the product marketplace. Obviously, if you are working in a Java environment, you will want books on Java to build your systems. But when you design your system, I'd reference this book first. It helps you design a better architecture in abstract, before you implement your system with whatever development tools you choose. In other words (and to finally conclude this review), this book will not help you build Web Services. It will help you prepare for them, design them, position them, and integrate them.