I have just come back from a fantastic 3 week trip to Egypt. The Cairo museum is a must, I went inside one of the Pyramids, coasted down the Nile and visited Abu Simbel on Lake Nasser.
There was some downtime while cruising down the Nile, so I decided to read Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services.
This book is not small at 500+ pages, and takes some time to go through. It can be a dry read and repetitive, especially the section that discusses all those lovely XML and web services standards 😦
It does a decent job of introducing and describing key concepts, even though it has a strong emphasis on using SOA as a tool for application integration. I personally see SOA having a wider role to play then just integration (More on that in future posts).
For readers new to the field of SOA, web services, and XML, this book lays a good foundation but really lacks concrete details in how these concepts and technologies solve real world problems. I understand that this book is the first in a line of books being published by Thomas Erl, so I wait with baited breath to see if more concrete details will be covered in future books.
An Enterprise Architect's Musings 