SOA - A Planning and Implementation Guide For Business and Technology

I recently finished reading Service-Oriented Architecture - A Planning and Implementation Guide for Business and Technology, written by Eric A. Marks and Michael Bell.

I liked it because it frames SOA with more of a business perspective and how to approach SOA in general. We all know that SOA does not necessarily equal WS-*. Where often SOA books are throwing spec after spec at us.

This book provides advice on how to create an SOA model to enhance the 2 main goals of an SOA:

1. Improved Code Reuse

2. Quicker Time to Market for Software Projects

Chapter 3 - SOA Business Modelling provided an example of SOA Value Analysis with a matrix comparing the various areas of the Business Value Chain against SOA Value Drivers such as "Grow the Business","Reduce Costs", "Asset Reuse", "Business Agility","IT Flexibility","Time to Market","Business Processes","Process Visibility". This analysis can help identify "SOA hot spots" to help prioritize business processes.

I appreciated the "big picture" approach to the book. Where you started off considering things like SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and SOA Governance, without wondering how to patch different specs together. The diagrams were good, it looked like some custom notation however. A good bridging book between technology and business.

A pretty good book, glad I read it. The title makes alot of sense after reading the whole book :

SOA - A Planning And Implementation Guide For Business And Technology