SOA for the Business Developer

A comprehensive yet very approachable introduction to service-oriented architecture... [with] numerous examples that illustrate best practices in applying SOA to an enterprise. This book will help you untangle the technologies that underlie SOA -- XML, WSDL, SOAP, XPath, BPEL. SCA, SDO, and WS splat -- so that you can meaningfully begin your journey. -- Grady Booch, IBM Fellow

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a way of organizing software. If your company’s development projects adhere to the principles of SOA, the outcome will be an inventory of modular units called services, which allow for a quick response to change.

This book tells the SOA story in a simple, straightforward manner that will help you understand not only the SOA technology, but also the technology that underlies SOA: XML, WSDL, SOAP, XPath, BPEL, SCA, and SDO. And through it all, the authors provide business examples and illustrations, giving a practical meaning to abstract ideas.

SOA for the Business Developer
   • Gives a detailed overview of Extensible Markup Language (XML), including namespaces and XML Schema
   • Describes Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) and SOAP, the standard SOA technologies
   • Gives a clear tutorial on XML Path Language (XPath), a language for deriving data from transmitted messages and other sources. XPath is useful for working with a variety of other technologies, including several described in this book
   • Gives comprehensive details on BPEL 2.0, a language that coordinates services and whose preceding version is already in numerous products. Our coverage is sufficient for most of your work with BPEL and includes a quick-reference guide
   • Introduces Service Component Architecture (SCA), a proposed standard for composing and deploying applications. You’re sure to hear more of SCA, which is sponsored by 18 companies
   • Introduces Service Data Objects (SDO), a proposed standard for representing data in a single way, even if the data comes from different types of data sources. SDO is likely to accompany SCA into the limelight



Ben Margolis is an IBM Advisory Writer with more than 20 years of experience as a writer and programmer.

Joseph L. Sharpe is an IBM consultant who uses the latest SOA technologies to integrate systems for corporate customers.

More About the Authors:

Ben Margolis
Joseph Sharpe