Independent View of SOA
Thomas Erl in this book provides an excellent reference and an independent/agnostic view of SOA that is not cluttered with Vendor speak. What I thought was valuable is the definition of business benefits, case studies and the beginning of SOA Principals and terminology that provides an organization a mechanism to organize their efforts and improve focus. Having worked with Web Services since 2001 and implemented them at many customers, the application and discussion of WS in conjunction with SOA is very helpful.
Excessively long winded for my use
It's hard to understand how the same author wrote this and SOA Principles of Service Design (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl) and Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl), both of which had more useful information in a much more compact package.
The only real use I can think of for this book is perhaps to quote in a sales context regarding the benefits of SOA to someone who hasn't heard of it. That said, although I believe in SOA as a powerful mechanism, I believe the claims in the book are less well supported then the heft of the book might imply. Other technical details like the importance of UDDI are largely out of date.
I disagree with some of the other reviewers who call the book overly theoretical: I would not give it that much credit. Theory would call on or reference solid research; this book provides anecdotal evidence at best.
Aside from some potential use to sales folks (perhaps why Sun, IBM and MS endorse the book), I think most will want to pass on this one.
Too much theory
I found reading this book boring after the first 6 chapters. What would have been more interesting is the author giving possible solutions (i.e. specific products) that could meet the specifications he laid out in each chapter. This book does not give specific real-world solutions that fit the descriptions and specifications that are described as constituting a Service-Oriented Architecture. After reading this book, I understand the architecture, but could not recommend any specific products that would fit the architecture.
Like a really, really long survey of SOA standards
If you want a book that covers most of the SOA standards in one place, this might be helpful. I think you could get that from Wikipedia. Lots regurgitation of SOA platitudes, not much value add. If you're looking to make the light go on about key SOA concepts, this isn't the book. It would make a good management summary of the technology, if it was about 1/3 as long.
A wonderful book about Service Oriented Architecture
This book help me so much about concepts, design, analysis.
Erl has done a very good work!
(59 reviews)
