Introduction
Welcome to Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies, 2nd Edition. We are very excited that service oriented architecture (SOA) is starting to mature and move into the mainstream. Increasingly, we see SOA becoming not just a technology platform but a business platform. SOA is game changing, and 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. We are also pleased that we can share more than 20 examples of how companies across nine vertical markets have used SOA as a way to improve business agility.
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 how 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 ...
