Book Review: Executing SOA: A Practical Guide for the Service Oriented Architect

Ratings and Stats

ISBN:	0132353741	Relevance:	5
Publisher:	IBM Press (www.ibmpressbooks.com)	Readability:	4
Author(s):	Norbert Bieberstein, Robert G Laird, Dr. Keith Jones, and Tilak Mitra	Overall:	4
Bottom Line:	Get your business sponsor of your SOA project to read the first few chapters, you read the rest and, together, bootstrap your SOA project immediately! Regardless of the fact that this book focuses on IBM products, it is loaded with practical advice that will help you steer through the treacherous seas of SOA. This is not a book that should take up space on your bookshelf. It should be next to your keyboard for the duration of your SOA project.

Intent and Audience

This book can literally be torn into two parts - one for the business focused stakeholders in your SOA initiative and the other for the SO Architect. Being an IBM Press book, there is the obvious benefit to IBM users, but the practical knowledge that can be extracted is useful to any SO Architect.

Chapter Highlights

This book kicks off with a clean introduction to SOA which explains the business and technical forces that led to formal SOA thinking. The key quote for me is "The IT architect became a city planner rather than a person asked to build a single house". Very early on, the notion of "silver bullet" solutions are dispelled and the books' focus on experiences in real-world projects is set.

The next two chapters, Unveiling the Benefits of SOA and SOA Governance delves into the minds of business executives and draws parallels between the world of business and the world of software architecture from a service orientation perspective. A key statement is that SOA is actually aimed, first and foremost, on business agility and not on IT.

Whereas the earlier chapters are of extreme value to business and the SO architect, the practical nature of the book really kicks in from the chapter on A Methodology for Service Modeling and Design onwards. This chapter introduces SOMA (Service Oriented Modeling and Architecture) standard from IBM. This may put off a few people who don't work with IBM, but the truth is that SOMA is an excellent body of work and offers SO architects something useful in part or in its entirety. As a reader, you must make a mental note that SOMA is, actually, product independent.

As important as management of services are, the chapter on Leveraging Reusable Assets describes the immense value to be obtained from reusability. The centralization of services in repositories and the surrounding issues of semantics, usage of repositories and the like is covered adequately.

Realization of Services examines the tools need to setup your SOA development environment. This chapter focuses completely on the IBM toolset. This is not unexpected; the book is an IBM Press book. If you are already using or decided on the IBM product set, then this is perfect. However, don't let this detract you. Read between the lines and extract the real value which is the nature and kinds of tools and products that you actually need to realize your SOA implementation.

With the intense focus on Services in SOA projects, the concept of Information delivered to end users is often neglected. The chapter Information Services corrects this imbalance. It looks at recent innovations and research for delivering information from your services to the right people at the right time in your organization.

The hype around Web 2.0 and the relevance and positioning of SOA in the Web 2.0 space is discussed in the chapter Collaboration Under SOA: The Human Aspects. This is a clear and precise chapter that brings the human/tool interactions into the realm of SOA.

The book wraps up with a discussion on The Future of SOA. This chapter is collection of short essays, abstracts and thoughts on the recent developments and emerging trends that you should, perhaps, keep on your radar.

Relevance of Material

This book offers good end-to-end coverage of getting your SOA project off the ground. With the primary focus on SO Architects, the introductory material arms the SO architect on the value of participation from business. It is the kind of book that offers a "reference" that you can refer back to as you progress through your SOA initiatives.

Resources

I actually read the book online at Safari Books Online which was an unexpectedly great experience. I found that Safari's features such as every page having a unique URL, ability to bookmark pages and make annotations make the service extremely useful. The full text search widget allows you to search within the book or across all books - very neat! For myself, that is constantly on the road, between computers, not having to haul hefty books along is a real bonus.

I certainly recommend using their trial offer at www.informit.com/safaritrial

In addtion, the book has many other resources with specific references to DeveloperWorks articles at the end of every chapter.