Thomas Erl is the world’s top-selling SOA author and Series Editor of the Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl (www.soabooks.com). With over 100,000 copies in print worldwide, his books have become international bestsellers and have been formally endorsed by senior members of major software organizations, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, BEA, Sun, Intel, SAP, CISCO, and HP. His most recent titles - SOA Design Patterns and Web Service Contract Design and Versioning for SOA - were co-authored with a series of industry experts and follow his first three books Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services, Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design, and SOA Principles of Service Design. Thomas is currently working with over 20 authors on a number of upcoming titles, including SOA Governance, SOA with .NET, SOA with Java, ESB Architecture for SOA, and SOA with REST. He is also overseeing the SOAPatterns.org initiative, a community site dedicated to the on-going development of SOA patterns. Thomas is the founder of SOA Systems Inc. (www.soasystems.com), a company specializing in vendor-neutral SOA consulting and training services. He is also the founder of the internationally recognized SOA Certified Professional program (www.soacp.com and www.soaschool.com). Thomas is a speaker and instructor for private and public events and is regularly invited to Gartner summits. He has delivered many workshops and keynote speeches, and is on the program committee for the International SOA Symposium. Articles and interviews by Thomas have been published in numerous publications, including SOA World Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and CIO Magazine. For more information, visit www.thomaserl.com.
Many are comparing notes on two well-publicized paths to achieving SOA. The
bottom-up approach is currently the most common variety, where Web services
are created on an "as need" basis to fulfill mostly integration-related
requirements. These services are typically application specific and simply
re-create traditional integration channels over the open Web services
communication framework.
The top-down approach, on the other hand, is one of analysis, deep thought,
and patience. Service-orientation is infused into the business process layer
so that services can be modeled in alignment with business models. The models
themselves may need to be built or further refined in order to fully
incorporate service-orientation principles.
Then, of course, there's the middle ground - an approach that tries to
balance the requirements of the top-down strategy with the efficiency... (more)
This excerpt describes fundamental terms and concepts associated with
service-oriented computing, including those related to service-oriented
architecture, service-orientation, and cloud computing.
Service-Oriented Computing
Service-oriented computing is an umbrella term that represents a new
generation distributed computing platform. As such, it encompasses many
things, including its own design paradigm and design principles, design
pattern catalogs, pattern languages, a distinct architectural model, and
related concepts, technologies, and frameworks.
Service-orientation (explai... (more)
Originally inspired by techniques used to design buildings and cities, and
popularized by the Gang of Four during the mainstream emergence of
object-orientation, design patterns have seen us through the various shifts
in architecture, technology, and, of course, design. Pattern catalogs have
periodically emerged, one building on the other, and each revealing a set of
problem-solving techniques and providing invaluable insights as to how and
when those techniques should be used to help us attain our design goals.
SOA has its own history, having risen out of a haze of ambiguity to e... (more)
For a complete list of the co-authors and contributors, see the end of the
article.
Windows Azure Platform Overview
The Windows Azure platform is an Internet-scale cloud computing services
platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. Windows tools provide
functionality to build solutions that include a cloud services operating
system and a set of developer services. The key parts of the Windows Azure
platform are:
Windows Azure (application container) Microsoft SQL Azure Windows Azure
platform AppFabric
The infrastructure and service architectures that underlie many of these
nati... (more)
With the unwavering prominence of service-oriented architecture (SOA) there
is an increasing interest in understanding what exactly it means for
something to be considered "service-oriented." Thomas Erl recently completed
a lengthy research project for SOA Systems Inc. into the origins of SOA and
the current state of service-orientation among all primary SOA technology
platforms. This body of work contributed to the mainstream SOA methodology
developed by SOA Systems and was also documented in Thomas's new book,
Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design. We ... (more)
Thomas Erl is the world’s top-selling SOA author and Series Editor of the Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl (www.soabooks.com). With over 100,000 copies in print worldwide, his books have become international bestsellers and have been formally endorsed by senior members of major software organizations, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, BEA, Sun, Intel, SAP, CISCO, and HP. His most recent titles - SOA Design Patterns and Web Service Contract Design and Versioning for SOA - were co-authored with a series of industry experts and follow his first three books Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services, Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design, and SOA Principles of Service Design. Thomas is currently working with over 20 authors on a number of upcoming titles, including SOA Governance, SOA with .NET, SOA with Java, ESB Architecture for SOA, and SOA with REST. He is also overseeing the SOAPatterns.org initiative, a community site dedicated to the on-going development of SOA patterns. Thomas is the founder of SOA Systems Inc. (www.soasystems.com), a company specializing in vendor-neutral SOA consulting and training services. He is also the founder of the internationally recognized SOA Certified Professional program (www.soacp.com and www.soaschool.com). Thomas is a speaker and instructor for private and public events and is regularly invited to Gartner summits. He has delivered many workshops and keynote speeches, and is on the program committee for the International SOA Symposium. Articles and interviews by Thomas have been published in numerous publications, including SOA World Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and CIO Magazine. For more information, visit www.thomaserl.com.
Sue Poremba
Scott Sellers
Anthony Franco
Daniel Morris
Wayne Walls
Niki Acosta
Jereme Hancock
Oren Michels
Marvin Wheeler
Douglas Kim
