Customer comments on this selection.
 Scattered, Out-of-Date,
The authors attempt an ambitious goal of covering many SOA topics - but their resulting text come across as scattered - vague - and lacking a coherent and practical application.
Thomas Erl's books are much better written - and have a coherent approch to buliding a solid body of knowledge.
For a manager / salesperson wanting a broad overview of SOA - they might be better served by reading Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies
Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
 Excellent book with excellent examples
You come across very few people in life
a) who know what they are doing
b) who can teach others with good examples
c) who do not have any vested interest in sharing the knowledge.
The authors of this book come under this category. Not only they seem to have worked on many best of breed SOA projects, they have a very good ability to impart this knowledge. They discuss the pros and cons of all the options and let reader choose what is best for his/her situation.
This book seems to have the right mix of technical, management and business knowledge about SOA. Like many business oriented books it does not limit itself to discussing the organizational challenges and project management aspects. Like technical books, it does not limit itself to web services. This book opens your mind to the real IT landscape in today's organizations, particularly its heterogeneity. It opens your mind to thinking how SOA can connect these heterogeneous systems and make them productive. I have really enjoyed reading this book after completing my architect certification.
 Useful at an architectural level but not at a development level
May be I was expecting too much out of this book, it provides good categorization of different types of services and the roadmap - however I feel it lacks some details on the technical implementation part as to what tools/technologies/standards are ideal to implement this architecture.
Again, may be my expectation was not realistic.
No nonsense, practical advice
Frankly, I thought SOA was just a bunch of marketing hype until I read this book. The authors begin by clearly explaining of the kinds of problems SOA is trying to solve, and how other architectures tried and failed (or partially succeeded) to solve these problems. In fact, you don't get a definition of SOA until chapter 4, which is a good thing. The advice and strategies are well-reasoned and practical. The organizational roadmap seems to be unique among SOA books, and is clearly derived from experience. The case studies highlight the kinds of tradeoffs each organization had to deal with, along with lessons learned. Finally, I found this book to be very readable and interesting.
Honest and insightfull
This is a great introduction to SOA. The authors focus on the fundamentals of SOA, displaying both wisdom and honesty as they discuss the structure of an SOA, its essential and optional elements, strategies for SOA introduction (from technical and organizational points of view), SOA oriented project management techniques, success (and failure stories), etc.
The book is refreshing in the way that it avoids the vendor induced hysteria associated with new technologies choosing instead to calmly and objectively discuss the fundamental forces driving SOA adoption: federation, heterogeneity, agility, reuse.
Additionally, the authors display a healthy dose of independence as they discuss the merits and lack thereof of over-hyped technologies such as Enterprise Service Buses and BEPL systems. This is clearly a book written by people who have actually built SOAs, as opposed to sit on WS-* committees or implement SOA related junkware.
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