Woods, D.; Mattern, T.: Enterprise SOA : Designing IT for Business Innovation. First Edition, Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 2006
Although not published through SAP Press and not visible otherwise from the front cover, one clearly has to state that this is a book which is discussing the SAP view on enterprise SOA / ESA. Dan Woods was already author of the first book about Enterprise Services Architecture published in 2003 (German version 2004: Enterprise Services Architecture). For this new book now he gets support from Thomas Mattern, which is the Solution Marketing Manager for ESA at SAP. This might be a little hint.
Short assessment: If you are already using SAP technology or if you are thinking about using it in the future, this book will give an overview and serve as a good entry point to get informed about new visions, concepts and products at SAP. If you just want to get informed about SOA and already know that you won’t implement your SOA using SAP technology, better keep on searching as large parts of the book are product focused.
Chapters of the book:
- ESA in the World of Information Technology
- The Business Case for ESA
- Evolving Toward ESA
- ESA Fundamentals: Learning to Think ESA
- The Structure of ESA
- The Enterprise Services Community
- Creating a Roadmap with the ESA Adoption Program
- The Enterprise Services Repository and the Enterprise Services Inventory
- Project Mendocino: A Product Based on Consuming Enterprise Services
- ESA at Work: Examples from the Field
- SAP xApps Composite Applications for Analytics
- The Architecture and Development Tools of Composite Applications
- Supporting Composite Applications
- Web Services Basics
- Creating Enterprise Services in ABAP
- Creating and Consuming Services in Java
- ESA and IT Governance
- ESA Life Cycle Management and Operations
- ESA Security
- Standards and ESA
Do expect:
- answers to questions you might have
- practical guidance supported by screenshots and images
- a business-oriented introduction why enterprise SOA is important
- to get an overview of SAP visions, applications, tools, consulting services and community initiatives in the context of SOA
Don’t expect:
- good structuring
- precise definitions of terms, concepts and technologies
- academical examination of SOA
- vendor-neutrality
Enterprise SOA with SAP NetWeaver 2004s
October 18, 2006
Enterprise SOA currently is a very important topic at SAP and most SAP presentations you get to see (for example at SAPTeched which was starting today in Amsterdam) will probably include information and graphics about enterprise SOA, NetWeaver and the Business Process Platform. However, I made the experience that those graphics are either very simple (don’t provide information about included components, tool names etc.) or they focus on a specific application like Application Server, Exchange Infrastructure or Composite Application Framework. Thus for me it was very hard at the beginning to understand the coherences and differences between NetWeaver applications and to get an overall understanding what enterprise SOA means in terms of SAP tools and applications. Therefore I created my own picture which I extended over time. Of course it does not include all details but the chosen granualirity was a good basis for the discussions I had in the area of enterprise SOA. So here it is, maybe it’s of some help for you as well:
Enterprise SOA with SAP NetWeaver 2004s
The graphic might be a bit complex when you first see it but this is how the application reality in the context of enterprise SOA is. For the most important applications you find the respective development tools at the side in a box with striped background. The graphic also gives an orientation which applications are on the same layer. You see for example that web services can be created with XI or CAF Core, processes with ccBPM or Guided Procedures. So it might be interesting to explore the differences.
In case the graphic is helpful or you have an idea how to improve it, you can of course leave me a comment.
