Enterprise Application Integration: A Wiley Tech Brief

This book provided me with an excellent overview of possible architectures (from messaging to full transactional systems). It also provides good exemples. One of the key positive element of this book is that it provide an overview of current suppliers in this field.

This book is a *technical brief*, not a technical "how to" book on EAI - it says so right in the title! For those who have a hard time discerning what "technical brief" means, if you see it in a title it is a good indicator that the book is going to give a high level view of the topic. This book does that, and it does it well. Like all well written technical briefs, and certainly those that address a subject like enterprise application integration, this book does a good job of tying together technical and business factors. Personally, I believe that this book can be read by business people because the average business professional comes across as better educated in analytical techniques than those people who work in IT. I also thing that IT professionals should read this book because it shows them the business side.I hope that people who are considering this book exercise a little analytical ability by reading the title and figuring out that this book does not go into technical detail. If the title doesn't help, perhaps some of the reviews here will. Let's make it simple: If you want an overview this is the book. If you want technical details, it is not. If you want technical details and buy any book with the words "tech brief" in the title you probably should take some night classes in comprehension or analytical thinking, or consider a different profession.

After 24 years in mainframes and a year as a consultant in the much more complex world of distributed systems I wanted an introductory text on EAI that addressed the technical aspects, but was not filled with an overwhelming amount of details. This book was a perfect introduction to EAI for me. As a service delivery consultant I was very interested in the chapter on business drivers because my job is to align IT to business processes, so the discussion of business drivers from the perspective of EAI was something I could immediately use.The integration approaches were familiar territory based on my background, but some of the approaches provided were unique twists that I had not encountered. What I really liked was the chapter on architecture building blocks because I was able to see clearly what it takes to design, develop and implement an integrated enterprise architecture. I also liked the way the authors presented messaging and transaction architectures. I was vaguely familiar with messaging architectures from my IBM days (MQSeries), and a lot more familiar with transaction processing monitors and approaches. These two chapters showed me how to apply my existing knowledge and experience to understand EAI architectures. This book gave me a good understanding of EAI in general, including the technical and business aspects. It went neither too deep nor too shallow. I am not sure how suitable this book will be for business managers because it gets pretty technical in places. It also is probably too high level for someone who has EAI experience. However, for someone with a technical background who wants to see EAI's "moving parts" and how they fit together it is perfect.

This book is a advertised as a technical brief, so by its nature it does not purport to get too deep into enterprise application integration. What it does do, however, is give a non-technical manager or someone who is migrating their technical skills from, say, mainframes the ability to quickly discover the moving parts and associated issues of EAI. In that respect this book lives up to its title and does an excellent job.The authors start with EAI business drivers, which sets the context for the business process owners who need to understand how the "EAI project" that IT is cooking up will affect their lives. For the more technical manager or individual who is making a horizontal career move, the types of integration will be of great interest. Then authors do a good job of clearly explaining approaches. Basic building blocks is about as far as a business process owner will want to wade into this book. It gives a clear picture of the scope and complexity of an EAI solution without overwhelming details. The chapter on messaging architectures can be easily followed by IT managers who are in their positions because of a basic understanding of technology and emphasis on business. Although the material is fairly high-level it is also suitable for developers, DBAs and other technical types who may not be exposed to messaging architectures, or whose life is more oriented towards transaction processing. Another chapter that may have a wide technical audience is the one that addresses object architectures. For all of the hype and buzzwords, object-orientation is still grossly misunderstood, even by people who are suppost to understand it. I like the way the material was presented.I got the most from the chapter that covered the author's Secure Application Integration Methodology (SAIM). I saw a lot of parallels between their method (which is proprietary to their company, Concept5), and the work developed by the company for which I work (naturally, proprietary as well). Too bad this book is a technical brief because I would have loved more details on the SAIM methodology :-)If you are looking for a "nuts and bolts" book this one is not it. If you are trying to get quickly up to speed in EAI, this is a great starting point. I read the book because I was looking for material that I could give to clients, and this one fit my needs perfectly. I recommend it to its intended audience and give it five stars for doing what it claims: giving a clear, understandable summary of a complex subject.