Book: Enterprise SOA Adoption Strategies

A new book called Enterprise SOA Adoption Strategies by Steve Jones is available for free download (after registration) and can also be purchased here.  Steve is the CapGemini UK CTO for Application Development Transformation.

The book’s approach is based the OASIS SOA Reference Model.  Both Steve and CapGemini have made significant contributions to the SOA notation and methodology used in that model.  Infravio’s Miko Matsumura was the chair for the OASIS SOA Blueprints group that developed the model.

Steve starts out by describing a top-down approach for SOA design.  Moving from a “Level 0” 70,000-foot view, he gradually fleshes out more details, describing Support Services, Technical Services, Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and Service Consumers/Actors.

Steve’s presentation addresses SOA from the business perspective and doesn’t get into many technical implementation details, but it does provide a very practical real-world guide for approaching SOA.

His approach is a very appealing and highly visual.  His techniques employ a variety of graphics.  For example, he shows how high-level UML Use-Case like diagrams can map actor and system relationships.  He uses service maps that contain “heatmap” data to help identify the business critical (red) to non-critical (blue) elements.

I especially liked some of his 3D charts, like the matrix shown here that classifies a service based on project requirements, design and delivery efforts.  These kind of graphs could be useful in communicating why certain business and technology approaches were taken in a project.

IT projects often have a problem in quantifying the business Key Performance Indicators (KPI).  Steve outlines a technique for determining KPIs and suggests that a wiki or other collaborative tools be used to jointly define and develop KPI models.  This topic was interesting and I would have liked to have seen more details on applying the technique.

Another chapter describes a spreadsheet-based technique for how to identify existing Services that already are part of the IT infrastructure and to target them for reuse within SOA.  A great technique and very practical.

Enterprise SOA Adoption Strategies is a great guidebook for getting started in SOA.

Table of Content

1. Introduction   
2. Why A Service Architecture Is Important   
3. Start At The Top   
4. Core Definitions and Approach   
5. Creating A Service Architecture   
6. Completing the Service Architecture   
7. Building The Complete Architecture   
8. Classifying Services   
9. Measuring KPIs   
10. Understanding The Technical Language For “How”   
11. Extracting Business Services From Existing IT   
12. Impacts Of SOA On Project Planning   
13. Using A Service Architecture In IT Support