Book Review: SOA Approach to Integration XML, Web services, ESB, and BPEL in real-world SOA projects

Book Review: SOA Approach to Integration XML, Web services, ESB, and BPEL in real-world SOA projects by Matjaz, Ramesh, Pooranchandra and Frank (ISBN: 978-1-904811-17-6)

At first glance this would appear to be another "me too" title, and while in some ways that may be true. However there are a couple of things that set this book apart and it can be of value to those experienced in Integration & SOA as well as those new to the subjects.

Those who are new to the book I will recommend read as much as possible and this book must be one those. This book covers basic essentials of Integration, SOA, WebServices and BPEL in very simple and lucid language, which can help any greenhorn.

The most important part of this book is its language. The most glaring lapse in this book is assuming SOA means web services.

It has explained concepts of EAI in very concise & to the point in first chapter. While explaining Integration Infrastructure authors have drawn nice picture, which covers almost all aspects of integration tool stack. But in the section of Integration Technologies section, it fails to mention that MoM, TPM, ORB, App Server and ESB are various generations of the same and no word about “Several hybrid and proprietary products”.

The second chapter covers SOA in technology agnostic as well as Java &. Net specific way. This chapter nicely covers basic concepts of SOA, which include not only ESB but also web services and its Java and .Net implementation. This chapter also tries to cover process-based architecture in the end, which makes things little bit clumsy.

The third chapter covers XML, Schema, XML document security, and XML parsing. This chapter covers a lot but also leaves behind a lot. It totally neglects non Java XML parsers.

The forth chapter seems to be inspired from IBM’s eBusiness patterns. This chapter also touches Web Services Interoperability (WS –I) stuff, which is pretty elaborated.

The fifth chapter covers BPEL and integration with emphasis on process orientation. This chapter is good reference for BPEL and especially Oracle way of BPEL in its Fusion Middleware.

The last chapter covers ESB in detail. The name of the chapter and content of it does not match.

The most wanted but missing part in this book is references for each chapter in particular and for book in general.

In summary I would suggest that this is a good book for anyone involved in SOA and integration project. It will provide a good introduction for those new to the discipline of Integration and SOA. While acting as a useful refresher for those with more experience

go and grab the book at packtpub.com