Service Oriented Architecture With Java 110
Martijn de Boer writes "The book has been written to provide the reader with a short introduction to the concepts of Service Oriented Architecture with Java. The book covers the theory and analysis from the start and is progressing to a more intermediate level slowly throughout the different chapters. This book has been written for software architects and programmers of the Java language who have an interest in building software using SOA concepts in their applications. The cover hints to a series called “From Technologies to Solutions”, and that is exactly what this book tries to do, it tries to explain the SOA technology with different case studies and a path for solutions for your applications." Read below for the rest of Martijn's review.
When I ordered the copy of the book, I was under the impression that I was required some familiarity with terms used in the world of SOA but I was rather fond of the easy explanation of terms in the first chapter. The first chapter starts off with a small introduction to the role of software architecture when thinking about a software project. The chapter covers alternatives to SOA and tries to get the reader onto the right path for the rest of the book.| Service Oriented Architecture with Java | |
| author | Binildas A. Christudas, Malhar Barai, Vincenzo Caselli |
| pages | 192 pages |
| publisher | Packt Publishing |
| rating | 8/10 |
| reviewer | Martijn de Boer |
| ISBN | 1847193218 |
| summary | This book is an overview of how to implement SOA using Java with the help of real-world examples. It briefly introduces the theory behind SOA and all the case studies are described from scratch. |
Later on in the book different subjects pass, the first few chapters start off with the basics of using XML as a communication layer. The third chapter introduces the audience to different implementations of web services in the Java world including the most familiar names as Apache Axis, Spring and XFire. The reader will be shown and guided to the install process of these web services and is being shown around the process of working with the software. The pros and cons of every piece of software are shown when following the steps throughout the chapters.
The book ends with chapters providing case studies of real world examples of SOA and alternatives. I have found this to be the most informative section of the book when looking to make decisions on how to architect a software project as it provides several examples on when to use which aspect of SOA. The different case studies allow you to put some weight and foundations into your decisions. The last chapter of the book is basically a conclusion of what we have learned throughout the book and provides a clear summary of goals of using service oriented architecture.
The reader is expected to have understanding of Java to follow the examples throughout the book. Examples are demonstrated on Windows machines, but could be followed on any other platform as well without having the hassle of setting up a different environment. That is one of the advantages of Service Oriented Architecture with Java, because it basically can be ran everywhere.
When you work your way throughout the book, you will discover different clearly illustrated diagrams and other informational graphics. There are more than enough images to make this something other than a boring theory book, as the images often provide a better understanding of different explanations of architecture and setups.
The book covers a small setup with Apache Axis 1.3 and mentions to use this opposed to the more recent 2.0 version because more software is being implemented on top of the 1.x series of said web service. However because the reader is starting to learn about SOA, it would have been great to see some of the differences and read why 2.0 hasn't been adopted much yet. I would have liked to see a bigger comparison between those two versions, but as the authors point out, there is a great community for both versions which provides a lot more background information if you want to look further into the more technical information that isn't provided in the book yet.
This book is a good way to get your feet wet in using web services to build and architect powerful Java applications for your business. I am no big Java developer yet, and I needed this book to navigate through the different pieces of software available, it succeeded very well at that point. I was fond of the clear writing style, which has always been the case by books from Packt Publishing. The book also has been written in a logical order, putting case studies at the end of the book so they are better to follow. Most technical books I own are written in a way that allows you to jump from chapter to chapter in an order that you need them, but I found this book to be a solid line of information of which the difficulty grade builds up from beginning to end. As a developer and software architect I really appreciate how well this book has been written for this audience, it's almost as if it was written especially for me and the knowledge I had of service oriented architecture.
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I'll admit... (Score:4, Interesting)
The only "service" I started from Scratch was the one to make the CD Tray eject every 5 minutes. It's been alot of fun pulling pranks on room mates and co-workers. However my co-worker had the profound idea of putting this on a handful of USB sticks and have it auto-install when plugged in to a computer. Then we toss a handful of these things in the parking lot, and whoever puts in an IT Request about it gets fired.
As for the book, I've never worked on a web service in Anything but VB, it handles everything we need it to do, which is very basic (pun intended).
Aside from the familiarity of Java, what benefits would Java offer for web services?
Re:I'll admit... (Score:3, Interesting)
And he's been long gone. We haven't actually tried this approach, it was just an idea. But there is nothing wrong with taking an offensive measure to test a companies defense. Certain users will require certain rights to a machine, you simply can't lock -EVERYONE- down. The CEO for example, must have unimpeded web access, and allowed to install his applications at will. If he wants to use MSN Messenger, by God, he is GOING to use MSN messenger. And everyone in his close circle will get some of that cake.
Now, we can set up machines to do one thing or another, and we can use Active Directory to the fullest extent, and we can filter all network traffic through our proxy and keep the regular employees from facebook after they learn how to use a proxy or change their DNS.
None of these will have any effect on an employee who has a bit of technical knowledge. One who knows how to boot from a CD, change the admin password, and change his rights locally on his machine. It has happened to us before in our company, and we're not even that large, Maybe 1000 people. That person then set up some bit-torrent action and ended up getting a Virus that lagged up the entire network across Canada.
Rather then wait for something like that to happen again, we put policies in place, make them known to employees, and run a test to see who breaks them. We allowed unimpeded internet access for a week and tracked all the people who use facebook once a day or more. They didn't get fired but they got a harsh warning. I mean you can call it underhanded but thats just the route you gotta take in the security biz.
Re:I'll admit... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have seen side by side performance comparisons of the same algorithms in java and c#. Java is at least twice as fast as c# and often as much as 2^3 times faster. The .NET architecture footprint, both in terms of disk space is also larger. In what way is .Net categorically superior?