Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies®

Introduction

Welcome to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) For Dummies. We are very excited by this topic and hope our enthusiasm is contagious. We believe SOA is the most important technology initiative facing businesses today. SOA is game changing, and early SOA successes make it clear that SOA is here to stay. We hope this book is enough to ground you in SOA basics and to whet your appetite for the SOA adventure.

Service oriented architecture is more than a bunch of new software products strung together to allow technology companies to have something else to sell. SOA represents a dramatic change in the relationship between business and IT. SOA makes technology a true business enabler and empowers business and technology leaders alike.

The software industry has been on a journey toward a service oriented approach to software for more than 20 years. Smart people have known for a long time that if software can be created in such a way that it can be reused, life will be a lot better. If software can be designed to reflect the way business operates, business and technology can align themselves for success. Finding good ways to reuse the years of investment in software means money spent wisely. These issues are at the heart of SOA and are among the reasons we think this book is so important.

SOA is not a quick fix, but a very rewarding adventure. It's an approach built on industry standards — with large doses of forethought and planning. It is indeed a journey. We hope this book inspires ...