I Wish I'd Said That

The folks at Packt Publishing sent me a copy of the following book and asked me to review it for them. I hope you find it useful and informative.

Title:
SOA Approach to Integration

Language: English
Paperback: 300 pages
Release Date: November 2007
ISBN: 1904811175

Authors:
Matjaz B. Juric, Ramesh Loganathan, Poornachandra Sarang, and Frank Jennings

Intended Audience:
“The target audience for this book are architects and developers, who are responsible for setting up SOA for integration for applications within the enterprise (intra-enterprise integration) and applications across enterprises (inter-enterprise integration or B2B).”

Overview:
The book does a good job of covering and tying together a broad range of material with respect to the title topic. It provides a varying degree of detail in different areas, for example a light treatment of SOA in chapter 2 yet a more in-depth look at XML in chapter 3. The intended audience is noted as architects and developers so this variance may make sense but it seems inconsistent at times. Overall I thought this was a good book for anyone interested in the topic and a good reference for those who have been tasked with an integration project.

Chapters:
1.) Integration Architecture, Principals, and Patterns – covers a wide variety of concepts including types of integration including data, application, process and presentation. It also speaks to layers of integration such as communications, brokering, routing, transformation and others. The authors touch on various technologies in the integration arena, for example, database access, message oriented middleware, remote procedure calls, transaction monitors and more. The chapter finishes up with a quick overview of the integration process, various practices activities and patterns.

2.) Service and Process-Oriented Architectures for Integration – talks a great deal about the concepts and standards that make up Service and Process Oriented Architecture. It is not an in-depth tutorial on either subject but is a good reference for the standards associated with them and why they are well suited for integration.

3.) Best Practices for Using XML for Integration – is closer to a tutorial on XML than a description of the architectural rationale and implications of it with respect to SOA. Since part of the target audience is developers the level of detail in this chapter is not un-warranted. This chapter includes a comparison of JAXP API’s and shows a number of XML schema and XSL stylesheet examples. It also speaks in reasonable detail to validation, security, encryption and performance considerations with respect to XML.

4.) SOA and Web Services Approach for Integration – steps more deeply into the area of web services and again much of it is directed to developers as opposed to architects. It contains a good overview of various patterns and contains some guidelines on their usage. The chapter contains a light review of web services for B2B and EAI and then a more detailed description and examples of interoperable web services, WSDL and WS-I.

5.) BPEL and the Process-Oriented Approach for Integration – speaks in more detail about BPEL and what the authors refer to as “the process-oriented approach to SOA-based integration.”. This chapter addresses the usual suspects of choreography, orchestration and complexity in a clear fashion. It then goes into more depth on writing BPEL processes and works through a fairly complete example.

6.) Service and Process-Oriented Approach to Integration Using Web Services – gets to the heart of the notion of using SOA for integration by delving into the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). This chapter covers the ESB at the appropriate level of abstraction for an architect and touches on key areas such as mediation, transformations, communications, transactions and security.

Conclusion:
I enjoyed the book and felt it delivered on the topic of SOA Approach to Integration. Trying to target both architects and developers is a difficult task but readers from either area will find something useful in this book. It is not the definitive work on SOA and Integration but it does a good job of tying together a broad range of material and will be a welcome addition to anyone’s technical library.

written by Rob Caljouw

The gadget we just can’t seem to live without, a cell phone. I’ve never been a fan of cell phones but that has more to do with some of the folks who use them and the network providers behind them I suppose. I’ve never figured out why some people are so adamant that I hear their entire conversation. I can appreciate the technology behind the direct connect feature but it really loses it’s luster when I’m in a restaurant with half a dozen people around me are having conversations on their Push To Talk gadgets. Having to deal with the “phone company”, well, that’s another story entirely.

I’ve used lots of cell phones from lots of manufacturers on lots of networks and never really got very excited about any of it. On the other hand, going without my laptop and a WiFi connection has been know to cause heart palpitations at times. Then I got my iPhone.

Now admittedly, I’m a fan of Apple and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the disruptive effect it had on the market long before it was released. And, yes, I bought mine on day one after standing in line but even that was an interesting experience in and of itself. It was great fun to enjoy the release such an anticipated product but at the end of the day it was still a cell phone.

I’m not going to try and convince the world that everyone needs an iPhone but I though I’d take a few minutes and share a bit of my experience with one. First of all, and perhaps I’ve been somewhat lucky, but I’ve found mine to be a pretty good phone. The calls are clear and it’s as good, if not better, than any other handset I’ve had so as far a phone goes, it’s fine. What’s more interesting to me, however, is the things I do now because of my iPhone that I never used to.

My children are like many 20, 30, and yes even 40 somethings who are big on social networking, be it MySpace, Facebook or whatever the flavor is this week they spend a lot of time online. They put lots of family pictures out there including my grand children and they email lots of family photos. Since they all live about 4000 miles away we don’t get to see them very often so to me this is a big deal. I, like most fathers and grand fathers, always carried pictures of everyone I could but this is much nicer. I was waiting for an appointment the other day when I got an email from my youngest daughter. It contained a number of links to her latest postings of baby pictures and I got to see my latest grand daughter online immediately. I immediately crated a new icon on the main screen so I could show people easily. Now, instead of a few photos in a wallet, I am able to show off, as well as stay in touch with, my kids and grand kids in a much better way.

I was always a huge music fan and have lots of music around, be it on vinyl, CD or just stored on my laptop and desktop. Oddly enough though, I have never owned an iPod or any other MP3 player. They just never really suited my life style or maybe I was just too old to care but at any rate I’ve never had much use for one. Once i got my iPhone, however, that changed rather quickly. I have to carry the phone anyway so one day I plugged in the earbuds and hit the iPod icon just for fun and it was great. I listen to music while driving, waiting in airports and pretty much anywhere I have a few minutes to kill. I will still never buy a MP3 player, the last thing I need is another electronic gadget to carry, but I will always have an iPhone.

There are many more things I like about the iPhone but just these two features make it worthwhile and fun for me.

written by Rob Caljouw

Here it is, February 4th, 2008 and the tech industry is off to a running start. 2008 has the makings of a pretty interesting year if the acquisition trend keeps up so it’s time to crank up the office pools and place your bets on what’s coming next.

Oracle buys BEA for $8 billion give or take a little. That’s a healthy investment by almost anyone’s measure and it’s certainly an interesting way to start the new year.

Sun Microsystems buys MySQL for $1 billion. I think this one took a lot of people by surprise, it certainly did me, but upon reflection it probably makes some sense. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see Sun making some moves in the industry again.

Microsoft, Yahoo and $44 billion, that’s quite a combination and I’m fairly certain it will generate more than a little discussion. If nothing else it will be interesting to see what happens if this goes ahead, or perhaps what will happen if it doesn’t.

If this is a game of tag then I would guess that IBM is “it” at the moment and I’m most curious to see what Big Blue might take a run at. If I were to guess I’d say something in the SOA sector but who knows. Of course it may be Google who is up next. What happens when you have a group of really smart people with a great deal of money, at this point I wouldn’t hazard a guess but I’m pretty sure it will be interesting whatever they decide.

I don’t know if these acquisitions will be good or bad for the companies involved or good or bad for the technology industry in general. At this point it makes no difference to me. Now, having said that, I like many others, have my opinions on all these deals but those are for future articles. For now I think this kind of activity does a lot of good the economy in general. These are not desperate acts of businesses trying to stay afloat in a time of economic uncertainty. These are bold acts of aggressive growth by companies who are confident in their strategic direction and I find that very encouraging.

These three deals potentially have $53 billion moving around in the economy. Now granted, it’s not moving far but it is moving and that’s a great start. Oracle and Microsoft are well known for their strategies around acquisitions but these are rather noteworthy even by their standards and that generates interest. Interest generates discussion and discussion generates activity so perhaps this the beginning of a private sector “stimulus package” for the economy.

Let’s hope so.

written by Rob Caljouw

I’m certainly not an economist, but I remember being taught in a macroeconomics course many years ago, the definition of a recession. A recession is a decline is a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more successive quarters in a year. Well that’s good news, we’re not officially in a recession, so what’s the problem? We may not “officially” be in a recession but at the very least it’s the story of the hot dog vendor all over again.

Businesses everywhere are bracing for the worst and likely engaging in the predictable and even understandable approaches to self preservation. Many business leaders will be focusing a great deal on cost reduction, narrowing of the scope of business, pulling all decision making up to the top and surrounding themselves with their trusted old guard.

I understand this behavior and it may even work in some cases but in general I believe it is very destructive and dangerous. It is also very limiting in what I consider a time of opportunity. Right now businesses should be focusing on four things; innovation, collaboration, training and investments.

Innovation is always key in any business at any time but it’s never more important than in a time of uncertainty. Get people engaged, excited and thinking. Most businesses, in one fashion or another, convey the notion that their strength is their people and I strongly believe that is always the case. Now is the time to leverage that strength because that is where innovation comes from. People who are excited and engaged are an incredible source of creative ideas and inspiration to the organization and each other.

Collaboration, which again, should be fundamental at all times is also often pushed aside in times of difficulty. If you have engaged your people then you have individuals and teams being creative and innovative now so it’s time for strong collaboration. Collaboration enables relationship building and that builds trust, when you have trust you have no limits. People generally want two things, personal success and organizational success. Since organizational success is likely their best path to personal success they will work tirelessly to contribute to that achievement. In order to be great people need easy and timely access to the right information which, of course, is enabled by a collaborative environment. Collaboration also strengthens the notion of the extended enterprise. Most businesses don’t exist in a vacuum, they are part of a value chain that binds them with their customers, vendors and other business partners. This is the time to strengthen those relationships and be more visible and open with your partners through collaborative efforts.

Training is probably the single most important thing any organization can invest in. This is a direct investment in your people and they are your greatest strength, are they not? Interestingly enough, however, this is one of the first things to be cut under the guise of cost control and this always fascinates me. Training is a commitment to people and if people feel the organization is committed to them then the reverse will be true. Train people in business, technology, finance, your customers business, customer service and in everything you can think of. Train, train, train, train, it’s the best investment any business can make. In uncertain times like today training should be increased not decreased or stopped.

Which brings me to investments. This recession we’re apparently not in has wreaked havoc in many areas, you just have to look at the number of home foreclosures to get an idea. On the other hand, however, there are a large number of individuals and organizations thriving in this environment. If you subscribe to any of my theories above then it doesn’t take long to realize that there are many opportunities out there for investment and acquisition. The housing market, for example, is described as a disaster by some but others view it as an immense opportunity for buyers. The same applies to business, many businesses are doing what I described above, scaling back in many areas, reducing the scope of business, laying people off and basically sticking their head in the sand hoping to survive. From an acquisitions perspective this what the military refers to as a target rich environment. This is a great time for acquisitions, developing new and enhancing existing partnerships, and finding creative innovative ways to further extend the enterprise into new relationships and markets.

So next time someone tells you about the upcoming recession take them out for lunch, buy a hot dog, and start talking about all the new and exciting opportunities.

written by Rob Caljouw