SOA in Practice: The Art of Distributed System Design (Theory in Practice)

This book demonstrates service-oriented architecture (SOA) as a concrete discipline rather than a hopeful collection of cloud charts. Built upon the author's firsthand experience rolling out a SOA at a major corporation, SOA in Practice explains how SOA can simplify the creation and maintenance of large-scale applications. Whether your project involves a large set of Web Services-based components, or connects legacy applications to modern business processes, this book clarifies how -- and whether -- SOA fits your needs.

SOA has been a vision for years. This book brings it down to earth by describing the real-world problems of implementing and running a SOA in practice. After defining SOA's many facets, examining typical use patterns, and exploring how loose coupling helps build stronger applications, SOA in Practice presents a framework to help you determine when to take advantage of SOA. In this book you will: Focus squarely on real deployment and technology, not just standards maps Examine business problems to determine which ones fit a SOA approach before plastering a SOA solution on top of them Find clear paths for building solutions without getting trapped in the mire of changing web services details Gain the experience of a systems analyst intimately involved with SOA `The principles and experiences described in this book played an important role in making SOA at T-Mobile a success story, with more than 10 million service calls per day.`

--Dr. Steffen Roehn, Member of the Executive Committee T-Mobile International (CIO)

`Nicolai Josuttis has produced something that is rare in the over-hyped world of SOA; a thoughtful work with deep insights based on hands-on experiences. This book is a significant milestone in promoting practical disciplines for all SOA practitioners.`

--John Schmidt, Chairman, Integration Consortium

`The book belongs in the hands of every CIO, IT Director and IT planning manager.`

--Dr. Richard Mark Soley, Chairman and CEO, Object Management Group; Executive Director, SOA Consortium

User review
Excellent Overview of SOA
I have read a number of books on SOA, but this book is by far the broadest and most practical. Written by a practitioner of SOA, the author covers real world implementation challenges and best practices.

User review
One of the best SOA books out there
One of the most clear-headed presentations of SOA concepts. It also deals with some of SOA's difficult problems (versioning, governance, incompatible data representations, etc.) that are often ignored by other books. It is a book that focuses on concepts and architecture. Other books are better suited for learning the nuts and bolts technical implementation details.

User review
This book enabled me to understand SOA
Josuttis does an excellent job in transferring his vast experience with SOA architecture to the reader in ways that allow you to take your previous knowledge of enterprise software and (finally) understand SOA to the point where you can guide a team as to whats important and not important and where the pitfalls are.

There are some initial chapters that have some confusing points specifically around what an ESB is or is not and whether its needed in a SOA. To cut a long story short, Josuttis is being initially abstract about what an ESB is which is confusing when we have very specific examples in the marketplace. When he says you need an ESB to implement a SOA I was confused until he explained that you need specific functionality that you might implement in an application server (as many have successfully) or buy an EAI product or buy an ESB. After that it was plain sailing in terms of understanding what to think about architecturally.

This book is far more practical and accessible than the Thomas Erl books and articles that I've read which left me wanting less abstraction and more specifics. In addition he also covers the soft skills side (not just the technical side) which is critical when making stategic changes to IT systems.

To reiterate, clearly a lot of painful experience has been distilled here and you would be crazy not to read this book to get that injection of experience in your team.

This is a book that will build your confidence as an architect faced with SOA tasks.

User review
Starting with SOA
This books shows you how to make a strategy to implements SOA systems. In some concepts it's very general and it have few examples. But have a general overview of what SOA systems migth be and some examples from writer personal experience was very useful to me.

I think that if you have no experience or knowledge about SOA this could be a good option to you. That's was my case when I red it, and I like it.

User review
Brilliant Practice Orientation on SOA
Josuttis managed to write an excellent book on the practical essence of the Service Oriented Architecture. He describes in precise words and with well thought examples how the new SOA paradigm will help shaping the future world of computing and he draws paths how an enterprise can gradually implement and benefit from SOA. Other than the popular but theory loaded book by Thomas Erl, Josuttis finds a way to teach the principles and pitfalls on the example of real-world experiences. Although the work is not a tutotrial, it is one of the best books out there in the markets to cover the topic. A must read for those who are more interested in `how-to` than a catch-all theory. Simply brilliant.