Review By: Brad Appleton
04/10/2005Enterprise SOA is an effective high-level overview for both technical experts and those new to SOA. It covers the fundamental SOA concepts and principles as well as some of the classic technology problems. The book is targeted toward business and organizational strategy for enterprise architects, rather than programmers looking for details about APIs, XML formats, and transport protocols.

The authors do an outstanding job of describing the business motivation for SOA and Web services, how to align them with IT strategy, and how to create a corresponding Enterprise Architecture roadmap. To that end, the best-practices and case-studies described are an invaluable aid to enterprise architects and project managers. Those looking for a business perspective and organizational strategy on how and why to create and implement an SOA roadmap will find Parts I and II indispensable, with the corresponding case studies in Part III well worth the investment.

Ample and effective diagrams and pictures explain the concepts described. There is a pleasantly surprising section on agility, the importance of sound enterprise architecture in achieving organizational agility, as well as Web service development agility. The coverage of business process management and how well it was related to SOA concepts is in chapter seven.

The architectural roadmap section (Part I) covered many of the technology impacts of SOA, but it was the organizational roadmap section (Part II) that was incredibly effective at showing the business impact of SOA, and this distinguishes this book from its competition.

The sections on SOA project planning, risk analysis, and organizational/stakeholder management practices were incredibly useful and the case studies and lessons learned really gave the feeling that the authors have solid real-world experience with "SOA In Action." They manage to successfully impart much of it to the reader.

An outstanding description of the business motivation and impact of SOA and Web Services, how to align them with IT strategy, and create architectural and organizational roadmaps. The best practices and case studies described are invaluable for enterprise architects and IT project managers.