Book Review - SOA Patterns (First 5 Chapters)

I'll cut straight to the chase, I definitely recommend SOA Patterns to anyone interested in SOA.

Even though its currently only available in MEAP, and is a bit rough and ready, and isn't complete, it's still great stuff and well worth your time.

Now I've said that I'll give a quick run through. Essentially the author, Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz, has decided to focus on the practical aspects of SOA and in particular with a focus on the software architecture aspects of SOA. It thus doesn't cover the business aspects of SOA, which is fine with me as those topics are covered elsewhere.

With that tight focus in mind Arnon has already managed to pack in a range of very interesting and valuable patterns. Each pattern includes the problem, solution, technology mapping and quality attributes. There is already the feeling of a pattern language about it which I think will evolve as later chapters are added, this should allow you to describe a complex system with just a few high level patterns or to dig into more detail by discussing the lower level patterns they compose.

You can actually read a few of the patterns online, see the linked PDFs and also the Blogjecting Watchdog pattern, and the anti-pattern called The Knot is also worth a read.

In addition Jan has posted a review of the book.

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Book Review - Enterprise SOA

I just got through with Enterprise SOA and have to say I think itis well worth a read. If you want a good review look here but here's a summary of some of my favourite aspects of the book:

1. Covered a range of technologies, emphasizing that SOA is not just about throwing out a range of Web services.
2. Covered valid design/architecture choices, for example discussing asynchronous and synchronous approaches and where they might each be useful.
3. Discussed how services can be a valuable tool in bringing IT/business closer together.
4. The case studies were very interesting, I actually would have liked it if the book had more detail but what it did include was useful.
5. The coverage of governance had me nodding my head, even if you don't chose to apply SOA you'll need to know how ensure that people don't fall back into tactical decision making.
6. Covered how SOA can change your approach to project management.
7. We need someone other than Erl talking about how to make SOA work in practice.

So I think the book is superb and well worth a read.

Having said that one issue I had with the book was the emphasis on having basic services as the cornerstone of your SOA (basic services being essentially entity services). I'm hoping that in a future edition the authors will explore how SOA can be used in a manner that work hand in hand with DDD and I think this would mean re-evaluating whether reusable entity services are really a good idea.

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