“Explaining the intersection of these two worlds--service-orientation and .NET technologies--is exactly what this book does. Its team of specialist authors provides a concrete, usable guide to this combination, ranging from the fundamentals of service-orientation to the more rarified air of .NET services in the cloud and beyond. If you’re creating service-oriented software on the Microsoft platform--that is, if you’re a serious .NET developer--mastering these ideas is a must.”
--From the Foreword by David Chappell, Chappell & Associates
“Microsoft’s diverse product line has long supported the service-oriented enterprise, but putting it all together into a cohesive whole can be daunting. From more established products, like Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, and BizTalk Server, to newer offerings like Windows Azure and AppFabric, the experts assembled here expose the sweet spots for each technology, talk through the high-level trade-offs, and offer a roadmap to a unified Microsoft SOA story.”
--Kevin P. Davis, Ph.D., Software Architect
“This book excels in giving hands-on and in-depth expertise on the SOA architecture style with the .NET framework and the Azure cloud platform. It’s a practical guide for developers, architects, and SOA implementers. A must read!”
--Ricardo P. Schluter, ICT Architect, Parnassia Bavo Group
“While the industry overall may have hyped ‘the cloud’ to the level it often seems to cure world hunger, SOA with .NET and Windows Azure helps cut through the questions and hype and more clearly discusses the benefits and practical techniques for putting it to work in the real world. This book helps you understand the benefits associated with SOA and cloud computing, and also the techniques for connecting your current IT assets with new composite applications and data running in the cloud. This book will help you understand modern middleware technologies and harness the benefits of the cloud both on and off premises.”
--Burley Kawasaki, Director of Product Management, Microsoft
“The authors have a combined SOA and .NET experience of several decades—which becomes obvious when reading this book. They don’t just lead you down one path with a single descriptive solution. Instead, the sometimes nasty trade-offs that architects face in their design decisions are addressed. These are then mapped to the Microsoft .NET platform with clear code examples. A very refreshing look at this major contender in the SOA space and a definite must for the .NET SOA practitioner!”
—Dr. Thomas Rischbeck, IT Architect, Innovation Process Technology
“In order to evolve as a software craftsman one must read excellent books that will help you grow and evolve in your profession. One of those books that every software craftsmen interested in good design and best practices should read is SOA with .NET and Windows Azure. With this book, you will learn which design patterns will provide the best solution for the kinds of software design problems you, as a developer or designer, face every day. This book has everything that software architects, software designers, and programmers need to know when building great quality software with Microsoft technologies.
“This will undoubtedly be one of those books that you reference repeatedly when starting new SOA projects. There is plenty of information that even those not working with typical service-oriented architecture will find very useful. With plenty of real-life examples (code, design, and modeling), readers see in a practical manner how they could use SOA patterns to solve everyday software problems and be more productive. SOA with .NET and Windows Azure will fit in my top three books and will definitely be one of those that I will use in my everyday work.”
--Arman Kurtagic, Consultant at Omegapoint AB
Customer Reviews & Comments
This book is a must have for anyone that wants to know what Microsoft technologies have to offer to accomplish Service Oriented Architecture.
If you are a .Net Enterprise Architect, this book should not leave your side. It covers all the right ways to accomplish distributed application architecture and enterprise integration using .Net technologies.
It is a book for both the beginner and the experienced. It covers SOA fundamentals in the beginning of the book as well as a history of legacy .Net distributed technologies. I enjoyed reading the history chapter. It brought back a lot of memories of COM+ and .NET remoting issues, which made me happy to be be using WCF.
The book does a great job of covering WCF and WCF Extensions. After two chapters on WCF, it then covers .NET Enterprise Services Technologies. They include SQL Server, Windows Workflow, Application Blocks and Software Factories, and Biztalk Server. The book does a great job of showing why, when, and where you would consider using the technologies.
There are several chapters on how to accomplish service orientation. Topics include Service Contracts, Interoperability, Coupling, Abstraction, Discoverability, Reusability and Agnostic Service Models, Service Composition and Orchestration Basics, Orchestration Patterns with Windows Workflow, and Orchestration Patterns with BizTalk Server.
There also several chapters on Infrastructure and Architecture. Topics include Enterprise Service Bus, AppFabric Service Bus, SOA Security, Presentation Layers with .NET, Performance Optimization, and SOA Metrics.
The book ends with several very helpful Appendices. They include an Industry Standards Reference, Service-Orientation Principles Reference, SOA Design Patterns Reference, and the Annotated SOA Manifesto.
I found the coverage of topics in this book to be just at the right level for introducing them, and then showing how they fit into the .NET SOA environment.
I will always have this book with me. It will not leave my side. It contains all the topics I need to consider when doing enterprise architecture. It will serve as a great one stop shop for solutions and ideas.
My only disappointment was that it was in black and white. I own the SOA Design patterns book which is in full color. With the type of diagrams in these books, color does make a big difference in ease of reading and understanding them. It would have been worth paying an extra $10-15 bucks for the book in color.
My other gripe is with Amazon. I had this book in hand for weeks because I ordered from the publisher before Amazon even had it available. Not sure where that went wrong, but it is no ding to the book.
I am counting both of my dings against the publisher and not against the book.
All in all you must buy this book if you are building applications with .NET in an enterprise environment. Even if you are building stand alone applications this book is worth reading. It has a ton of valuable information presented in a way that makes it unique to this book.
