Books: Enterprise SOA Adoption Strategies

Steve Jones, currently a CTO at Capgemini for SOA strategies, wrote this very interesting little book that fills a gap in the IT literature. The term SOA, which stands for Service Oriented Architecture, is a bit of an overused buzzword these days. SOA has to do much more with the business side of an enterprise than with the technological one, while most books focus their attention too much on technical aspects. The target of a SOA strategy, as Steve's book explain very well, is to "deliver IT to the business". This should sound very obvious, shouldn't it? In my experience many technology departments were nowadays being transformed into playgrounds for software programmers and mediocre IT managers instead. A SOA strategy must reinstate IT into its necessary form within the enterprise, which is to be business-driven.

SOA must be business-driven and not technology-driven

Steve's book explain very well an analysis approach to model a SOA starting from main business functions, down to a decomposition to technical services. The key to a Service Oriented Architecture? As he wrote: "It's the Service, Stupid!". So the second important concept you will understand reading his book is another very often missed point:

SOA must be service-driven and not process-driven

Enterprise SOA Adoption Strategies
by Steve Jones
Read it on InfoQ