The Zen of SOA 219
Alex Roussekov writes "The book "Zen of SOA" by Tom Termini introduces an original view to the challenging world of SOA. He refers to the Zen philosophy as a "therapeutic device" helping SOA practitioners to get rid of prejudices and opinions in order to apply a clear mind-set based on real-life experiences and the application of technology knowledge. Each chapter of the book is prefaced by Zen Truism that the author suggests to "revisit, reflect on it longer, and see if you are able to establish a truth from the narrative, as well as from your own experiences." In fact, the book is about a SOA Blueprint outlining a methodology for building a successful SOA strategy. The target audience is C-level Executives, IT Managers and Enterprise Architects undertaking or intending to undertake adoption of SOA throughout their organizations. I strongly recommend the book to all SOA practitioners involved in implementation of SOA." Read below for the rest of Alexander's review.
The Zen of SOA | |
author | Tom Termini |
pages | 112 |
publisher | BlueDog Ltd (November 21, 2008) |
rating | 9/10 |
reviewer | Alexander Roussekov |
ISBN | ISBN 978-0-615-24703-8 |
summary | provides a clear methodology to guide SOA implementations |
The author's vision is based on extensive experience in the SOA arena and he elegantly leads and prepares the reader for the introduction of his SOA Blueprint approach. I personally enjoyed reflecting on the Zen conundrums which stimulated me to focus and understand the content.
In Chapter 1 the author explains SOA as both Business and Technical Concept and the main challenges it tackles from different stakeholder perspectives. He also emphasizes some misconceptions and technology myths about Web Services and ESB which are key enablers but do not represent a holistic view of SOA.
Chapter 2 elaborates on using the SOA Best Practices as a critical success factor for maximizing an organization's potential and improving performance. The author recommends an Incremental Approach to the SOA Implementation. This is supported by a comprehensive Case Study with the US Federal Trade Commission client.
Chapter 3 gives a technology view of SOA. The author covers a number of SOA technology components, their capabilities and positioning within the SOA technology stack including Portal, ESB, Service Registry/Repository, Business Rules and Enterprise Search Engines.
In Chapter 4 — the concept of "Future-Proof" is defined by the author and his team as "architecting to be highly available, reliable, and easy to manage."
The future-proofing is an inherent quality factor with technological and cultural aspects which need to be achieved throughout the overall SOA Lifecycle. The author suggests that "a pilot, or proof-of-concept, presented in advance of implementation and deployment, can convincingly demonstrate the ability of the architecture to validate the business intent".
Chapter 5 presents the author's rationale for an incremental approach to SOA implementation. The main point is that the contemporary business dynamic creates a myriad of competitive pressures which impose significant risks, whereas an incremental approach shields the business from the SOA implementation demands and helps to accommodate the changes and utilize the benefits.
Chapter 6 "The SOA Blueprint" is the essence of the book. It is a "set of guidelines for the practical business deployment of services using SOA methods in a moderately sized, somewhat complex organization". The author has used the OASIS' reference models for SOA as a foundation framework. The Blueprint is also consistent with well defined and recognized methodologies such as TOGAF and Zachman. For example, the Blueprint artifacts fit well in the taxonomy of the Zachman Architectural Framework and they can be mapped to corresponding activities in the TOGAF ADM.
Chapter 7 provides practical guidance and recommendations related to the context of the SOA Blueprint. The author puts the focus on Standardization, Business Customer Perspective of Services, Risk Mitigation Strategy as well as technical aspects such as Data Integration, Service Orchestration, Security and Metadata.
Finally, Chapter 8 offers a checklist with a number of items required for the customization of the SOA Blueprint. The author provides both item definitions and procedural guidance.
Tom Termini shares deep expertise and knowledge gained by hard work on numerous SOA projects for government and private sector clients. His examples of real business value achieved can be traced in the case studies described in the book. Each case study is related to a particular SOA "koan" and comes with the description of the business context, approach, solution and the business benefits obtained as a result.
The Zen of SOA is a concise, readable and very well illustrated book which provides practical advice, guidance and immediate impetus for development of SOA Implementation Strategy, Vision, Roadmap.
You can purchase The Zen of SOA from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The Zen of First Post (Score:5, Funny)
You are the first post. You can do it.
SOA stands for (Score:2, Funny)
Scientologists of America.
My first thought was "Sphere of Annihilation" (Score:2, Funny)
Is that a bad sign?
Re:SOA? (Score:5, Funny)
A simple "No" would've sufficed.
32 dollars for 112 pages double spaced (Score:5, Funny)
What is this crap and why should I care? I have more books than I can possibly read in a lifetime and I would wager 90% of them have more meat on their bones than this book. This reminds me of the 90's schlocksellers like the Tao of Pooh and Physics which ruined the topics of both pooh and physics for years to come. Pastafarianism of Perl, now that is a book I would read.
By the way remember this
Circa 1999
You:
Oh, did you read they discovered the top quark [wikipedia.org] at Fermilab?
Random Girl in bar:
No, what is a quark?
You:
{QED QCD explanations in a bar at 1 am. You know in your undergrad heart of hearts this is what women want to hear}
Random Girl in bar:
Sounds like Taoism to me. Have you read the Tao of Physics, it is a great book. It tells about how the Chinese knew about all that stuff thousands of years ago.
You:
What? No they didn't, the standard model of physics is not something that can be partitioned up into dualities for the purposes of serving some crackpot theory.
30 minutes later at home alone waiting for your dial up modem to get online so you can troll for porn on your isp's NNTP servers. Remember when ISP's had their own NNTP servers?
Re:SOA? (Score:4, Funny)
So it's a buzzword based on more buzzwords. We're at buzzwords 2.0 now.
Re:SOA (Score:4, Funny)
I was wondering why there was a whole book on the Start Of Authority DNS record...
Re:SOA? (Score:3, Funny)
it's a silver bullet!
it's awesome!
it's a great way to sell more hardware and app server licenses!
it's fantastic when you're a consultant because you can stretch out the billing time like you wouldn't believe!
Re:SOA stands for (Score:2, Funny)
Scientologists of America.
AKA Self Obsessed Assholes
Re:SOA also stands for (Score:5, Funny)
"The present addiction to using initials instead of names and to giving institutions long titles that yield a pseudoword acronym is the childish-absurd."
- Jacques Barzun
We have created a Society of Acronyms, and are much the poorer for it.
slapping Zen (Score:5, Funny)
what's with this slapping zen on everything? What would the koan be : What is the spec before the meeting?
The real zen would be :
write simple, small things until the form is the function.
test in reality and in imagination, until both are one.
the SOA is the illusion. There is no SOA.
"Service Oriented Architecture" (Score:5, Funny)
Nope, I still don't know what it is.
Re:Truly impressive! (Score:5, Funny)
A monk once asked the Great Master Xideng of Xiangyan zi, "What is SOA?"
The master said, "The dragon song in the dried tree."
The monk said, "I don't understand."
The master said, "The eyeball in the skull."
The monk said, "I still don't understand."
The master said, "Yeah, me neither, I think its some crap they feed people who make too much money for doing too little thinking."
The monk was enlightened.
Re:The Zen of First Post (Score:3, Funny)
Silence, you PFY!
Re:REST Please! (Score:3, Funny)
You make some good points. However, even though I my not provide the best talking points, I am not the only one to think so [zdnet.com]
The SOA is a business-focus driven paradigm. It is the space of top-down development. WOA comes in from the other angle and is resource based. The clear winner here is WOA, because it allows you to combine the resources in new and unexpected ways. This is where innovation lies. SOA, being top-down is more about governing structure, so by definition you'll be more limited. I'm not saying you can't innovate, but it certainly would not be as easy.
Othe recommended books (Score:5, Funny)
(sample wisdom: study the office floorplan carefully. Identify the employees who sit in the corners of the room. Sack them first).
Damn, that's six potential business best-sellers straight away!
What about PTK? NGE?? (Score:3, Funny)
I like what I've read so far, but you really can't have an intelligent discussion about SOA without getting into PTK, at which point you'd be completely negligent not to address NGE as well. The "Zen" focus of this book makes it ideal even to tie in PTK, because of the elegance and simplicity with which they relate to SOA. NGE clearly makes the application of PTK as it relates to SOA, an extremely valuable yet simple vector of the overall SOA realm. Despite the relative newness of NGE I think I can go out on a limb and say that SOA would not be where it is today if it weren't for the fusion of energies between PTK and NGE having propelled it there.