Architecting Web Services | William L. Oellermann Jr.

Architecting Web Services | William L. Oellermann Jr. | Pretty good

books:

Architecting Web S...

	Architecting Web Services William L. Oellermann Jr. Apress, 2001 - 672 pages average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Architecting Web Services is targeted toward developers and technical architects who have heard about, and even started to work with, Web services. The book starts with a background on the evolution of Web services and their significance to future collaborative efforts via the Internet. It then reveals the architecture for Web services and the various relationships that can be established through their consumption.

Following a short technical primer on XML and related technologies, the Web services model is outlined to illustrate the decisions that have to be made in the areas of presentation, interface, and security before the design is even started. Topics ranging from content to state management to system infrastructures are discussed to help you understand the options and the pitfalls when developing robust Web services.

The life cycle of implementing Web services from start to finish is illustrated, taking existing processes and exposing their functionality through Web services. Examples extend both Java and COM objects as Web services before exposing an entire hotel reservation system through a Web services workflow. These exercises are followed by three application scenarios that consume these Web services, again with both Java and Visual Basic/ASP examples. Discussions cover the design, implementation, and testing of each solution to ensure a successful result.

Finally, the book takes a look ahead at the future of Web services by examining both the current strategies of the primary vendors and the standards initiatives that are presently under way. A companion website provides all the source code, and hosts the Web services and sample applications introduced in the book.

Author Articles

Read William Oellermann's article, 'Make Your Web Services "Easy Adopters"'.

for more information click here

A timeless read

There are a number of books written on Web services, but what makes this book different is that the author focuses on the concepts and patterns behind architecting Web services rather than current protocols. The author outlines the steps and the process that an architects needs to take to architect a solution around Web services, and why that solution is different than, for example, pure client/service type architecture. The software engineering aspects of architecting a solution with Web services in mind is depicted in detail, and that approach makes book rather timeless.

If you have been architecting software applications using one of many popular methodologies (pipes and filters, client/server, n-tier or layering, feedback and feedforward systems), you need to bridge the gap between what tends to be rather coupled solution to a Web services architecture, in which the components are very loosely coupled or not coupled at all. This might seem like an easier approach for an architect, but the difficulty rises when you try to architect systems that are for the most part self-contained. Component-based software design (CBD) has never been an easy task, and Web services architecture is an extension of CBD. The author extends the available literature from CBD, and provides a guideline for the readers on how to go about architecting Web services.

Three components that compose a Web services model are detailed throughout the book: presentation, interface, and security. Presentation, as you can imagine, mostly focuses on the user experience. The author makes a very compelling argument on why a good Web services presentation adds value for the users and the service providers as well. What the user experiences while using the service will become the key differentiator in choosing the right service. Interface model is what the user sees. The service user interacts with a service (programmatically) thru its interface, and as a service provider you need to think about what that interface should be. You might use a façade design pattern and expose a limited number of service invocation methods, but behind the seen, take care of much needed interaction between various of services from various locations. The security model, as you can imagine, is concerned with the security aspects of the services. The author talks about security as a separate entity thru which your design is manifested; as approach that is widely practices today. A hybrid of all the three models discussed is usually used, and a comprehensive example walks the readers thru how this is accomplished. The goal is to give the reader the ability to chunk-up your problem into chewable pieces, and solve one small problem at a time.

Another area which Web services are making strives at is workflow. The author dedicates a good portion of the book to this topic, and shows the reader how this task is done. The idea is to be able to assemble loosely coupled services into a full-blown workflow engine at run-time without loosing predictability and reliability in the process. Workflow is all about predictability of how your processes in the enterprise should behave. Due to their nature, Web services have a certain flare for being unpredictable. One can imagine the difficulty that rises in trying to integrate what by nature seems to be un-doable. The author represents the topic very elegantly, and discusses the pro's and the con's on using Web services for workflow.

In closing, this book is a must read for any architect working with Web services. The topics are not protocol dependant, so you don't have to worry about learning stale data.

for more information click here

Pretty good

This book is pretty good. I own a copy of it, and there's some good information in it, even though it's starting to get a little outdated at this point. And ignore the review by the person who said this book "is horrible" and suggested getting Java Web Services Architecture instead. That person *is* the author of that book, and is just trying to drum up sales. I've seen that book, too, and it's okay, but not great.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

recommendations

Semantic Web and Web Services
Favorite Web Services Books
Web Services Books
My computer books
shortlisted

services