Enterprise SOA

Enterprise SOA presents a complete roadmap for leveraging the principles of Service-Oriented Architectures to reduce cost and risk, improve efficiency and agility, and liberate your organization from the vagaries of changing technology.

• Benefit from the lessons of four enterprise-level SOA case studies from Credit Suisse, Halifax Bank of Scotland, and other world-class enterprises
• Make your business technology independent and manage infrastructure heterogeneity by focusing on architecture, not specific implementation techniques
• Recognize the technical and nontechnical success factors for SOA in the enterprise
• Define and communicate the economic value proposition of an SOA
• Apply pragmatic design principles to solve the problems of data and process integrity in an SOA environment

Whether you're a manager, architect, analyst, or developer, if you must drive greater value from IT services, Enterprise SOA will show you how—from start to finish.

• Chapter 1: An Enterprise IT Renovation Roadmap
1. Agony Versus Agility
2. Enterprise Software Is a Different Animal
3. The Importance of Enterprise Software Architectures
4. The Requirements for an Enterprise Software Architecture
5. The Relation of Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Standards
6. Organizational Aspects
7. Lifelong Learning
8. The Enterprise IT Renovation Roadmap
• Chapter 2: Evolution of the Service Concept
1. Milestones of Enterprise Computing
2. Programming Paradigms
3. Distributed Computing
4. Business Computing
5. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Chapter 3: Inventory of Distributed Computing Concepts
1. Heterogenity of Communication Mechanisms
2. Communication Middleware
3. Synchrony
4. Interface Versus Payload Semantics
5. Tight Versus Loose Coupling
6. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Part I: Architectural Roadmap
• Chapter 4: Service-Oriented Architecture
1. What Is a Software Architecture?
2. What Is a Service-Oriented Architecture?
3. Elements of a Service-Oriented Architecture
4. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Chapter 5: Services as Building Blocks
1. Service Types
2. Layers on the Enterprise Level
3. Conclusion
• References
• Chapter 6: The Architectural Roadmap
1. The Architectural Roadmap
2. Fundamental SOA
3. Networked SOA
4. Process-Enabled SOA
5. Conclusion
• Chapter 7: SOA and Business Process Management
1. Introduction to BPM
2. BPM and the Process-Enabled SOA
3. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Chapter 8: Managing Process Integrity
1. Data Versus Process Integrity
2. Technical Concepts and Solutions
3. Recommendations for SOA Architects
4. Conclusion
• References
• Chapter 9: Infrastructure of the Service Bus
1. Software Buses and the Service Bus
2. Logging and Auditing
3. Availability and Scalability
4. Securing SOAs
5. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Chapter 10: SOA in Action
1. Building Web Applications
2. Enterprise Application Integration
3. Business-to-Business
4. Fat Clients
5. Designing for Small Devices
6. Multi-Channel Applications
7. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Part II: Organizational Roadmap
• Chapter 11: Motivation and Benefits
1. The Enterprise Perspective
2. The Personal Perspective
3. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Chapter 12: Organizational SOA Roadmap
1. Stakeholders and Potential Conflicts of Interest
2. The Organizational SOA Roadmap
3. Four Pillars of Success
4. An Ideal World
5. The Real World — Organization-Wide Standards
6. Recommendations for the SOA Protagonist
7. Conclusion
• URLs
• Chapter 13: SOA-Driven Project Management
1. Established Project Management Methodologies
2. SOA-Driven Project Management
3. Configuration Management
4. Testing
5. Conclusion
• References
• URLs
• Part III: Real-World Experience
• Chapter 14: Deutsche Post AG Case Study
1. Project Scope
2. Implementation
3. Technology
4. Lessons Learned, Benefits, and Perspectives
• References
• Links
• Chapter 15: Winterthur Case Study
1. Project Scope
2. Implementation
3. Technology
4. Lessons Learned, Benefits, and Perspectives
• Chapter 16: Credit Suisse Case Study
1. Project Scope
2. Implementation
3. Technology
4. Lessons Learned, Benefits, and Perspectives
• References
• Chapter 17: Halifax Bank of Scotland: IF.com
1. Project Scope
2. Implementation
3. Technology
4. Lessons Learned, Benefits, and Perspectives
• URLs

Actually a very good book, that delivers on its promises (and even exceeds them in part). Written by people that seems to have some experience in the field they're writing about and they manage to convey most of these experiences to the reader. But beware, you need to understand the most common "Enterprise" technologies that are out there, as it is referenced (and sometimes shortly explained) but the reader is assumed to be of sufficiently high knowledge (which is what some consultants do, when they are experts and tires of explaining the same thing over and over).

It is not light reading, but it is well worth the effort, as they manages to explain the technology and the management issues surrounding SOA, and they they do it in a very nice way.

Recommended if you want to understand what SOA is all about and have a background in large IT systems.