Reviews for SOA Approach to Integration

1. Lacking in depth or quality, and disjointed

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2008

   I was delighted to be offered a copy of this book to review by the publisher, given my background in working with integration projects and SOA. Given the range of organisations represented by the authors, I picked up the book looking forward to getting a non-IBM view of the SOA world!
   
   The book covers integration architectures and the importance of Service Oriented Architecture in today's enterprises. The opening chapters provide some high-level background ranging from historical (the roots of distributed computing, DCE, CORBA, DCOM etc.) and why organisations might choose SOA as an approach.
   
   Unfortunately at this point the book then takes a sudden deep dive into the internals of XML schema. Whilst the technical information in the book is potentially valuable, each chapter reads like a disconnected essay which may pick up a thread from an early comment, but which has no clear place in an overall picture. The later chapter on BPEL attempts to tackle this subject in a vendor neutral manner, but unfortunately does so by printing large swathes of barely-readable XML, when in reality this kind of code is generated by visual tools, so the chapter is not particularly useful
   
   The book goes into detail on web services and the WS-* standards. These discussions are interesting, but there is no reference to other forms of interaction, notably REST, which is increasingly relevant to the enterprise.
   
   The authors set out to try to cover both Java and .NET worlds, and they do so but the book is clearly more heavily weighted towards Java/JEE.
   
   Most worryingly I found myself submitted a large number of errata to the publisher - typos, inconsistencies, and the fact that the sample code is not (currently) available on the publisher's website.
   
   I would say that this book provides a basic introduction to SOA and some of the technologies involved. However it has no clear goal or message, does not appear to have been well-reviewed, and reads more like a collection of essays which don't really fit together.

2. If you are delivering SOA I would look at this book.

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, January 12rd, 2008

   Selling the theory for SOA is pretty easy, the execution is harder because technically it isn't actually a very simple thing to do, let alone the changing of the structure of your IT organisation to house-keep.
   
   The book SOA Approach to Integration is aimed fairly and squarely at the Architect and Senior Developer who has the job of designing and implementing SOA technical level. The book is very resolute in keeping a strong focus on the technology and pleasantly realises that successful integration needs to take place across technological boundaries. Seems pretty obvious but I have a whole host of SOA books gathering dust because they lean heavily towards one technology and one approach. This book refreshingly avoids that, even avoid tasty new SOA areas such as composite applications and REST.
   
   The book takes the reader through the basic principles using patterns to demonstrate many classic integration techniques. Sample code in Java and .Net and takes you through the interoperability story between these two mainstream development environments. Sadly this is where I found my first real criticism of the book, the book does not cover Microsoft .Net 3.0 and WCF or indeed any of the work performed by the Open SOA group such as SCA and SDO. I know that both technology frameworks are on version 1 but developers will be keen to use these frameworks and will feel license to do so as they aren't in beta.
   
   One of the major problems with writing highly technical books is communicating complex points, this isn't very easy without diagrams. The book excels here because it's stuffed full of them, 92 diagrams (or there about's) and many a point sails across because of them.
   
   Most of my list of key SOA points are covered but the books core strengths are BPEL, XML Schema's, Web Services and establishing an ESB, subjects it deals with a high degree of expertise second to none. However specific applications are not mentioned much but one of the clear aims of this book is to stay tech-neutral and keep to the keys points and I would like to thank the authors for that. It is a rare treat to see advice separate from opinion.
   
   So would I use this book to advise me on my next SOA project? Most certainly yes! I can see it being my companion to many a design meeting and delving into it's pages for nuggets of advice. However comprehensive this book is not, thankfully it would therefore become a huge unwieldy tome and no use to man nor beast so I thank the authors that they keep things brief and to the point and at 351 pages not something that is going to weigh your brief-case down.