Expert Service-Oriented Architecture in C#: Using the Web Services Enhancements 2.0

I currently run a .NET user group so I know first hand that two of the most requested topics at my meetings are SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and WSE (Web Service Enhancements) version 2.0. Unfortunately this demand is hard to supply because there are simply very few speakers or books addressing these topics. This book delivers on both topics! First of all, the title of the book is right on the money. Jeffrey Hasan does a great job explaining SOA concepts by demonstrating how WSE 2.0 allows you to implement them. Most tech books I read are not balanced, either it is too conceptual with no implementation details, or it only has implementation details and doesn't flesh out the concepts. This book is very well balanced. You do not have to be a web services guru to read this book but it certainly helps to have some web service experience. This book would be useful for any developer/architect interested in the details of SOA/WSE and the future promise of indigo. A major bonus that is included with this book is over 20 pages of great references so that you can dig even deeper into the topics covered in the book. The only thing missing from the book is the CD with all of the samples included. I found the book to be very readable, and does a very nice job moving you from the traditional web service, to a message oriented one and then finally to a service oriented web service. That section of the book is one of the best at explaining why simply having web services does not mean you have an SOA. I would strongly recommend this book, and it gets my personal highest honor, which means it is carried in my laptop case, so I always have it.

The web used to be so simple. You had a bunch of pages, and like magic you could hyper-link to an entirely different page. Then it made a lot of sense to back the web site with a database. That way a standard page could pull up different data as needed. Kind of like this page, where the book title and description changes within a standard template. Then came web services companies that supply some particular kind of service. The first of these (or at least the first that most of us got exposed to) were companies that checked, authorized and/or billed credit cards so we could do e-commerce. The companies in this business established standards. And now the world has established standards for such service oriented architectures (SOA). As of the moment the world doesn't quite agree on what these standards should be. Two of the standards are incorporated in IBM's Websphere, and the J2EE. This book is on the Microsoft version on the way it should be done, called Web Services Enhancements or WSE and specifically the 2.0 version. If this is what you are thinking of using, or have been directed to use, this book provides a great introduction to the Microsoft approach. It a beginners book so far as SOA/WSE is concerned, but you should have some experience in .NET and in programming.

At the time of this writing, the two topics arguably getting the most press, causing the most stir and generating the most buzz for web services aficionados are service-oriented architectures (SOA) for general audiences, and more specifically within Microsoft circles, Web Services Enhancements 2.0. Author Jeffrey Hasan (of whose work I'm a big fan, notably for his work in "Performance Tuning and Optimizing ASP.NET Applications" (...) paints a masterful picture of both topics in this outstanding work. This is a must-have if you've caught the WSE bug (pun accidentally intended) and need a practical guide to building better web services. The material assumes a fair amount of .NET experience on the part of the developer, so the focus isn't on presenting exhaustive code examples and then describing them line by line; the intent is to give the seasoned .NET programmer a primer on how to make their apps more effective and more available to the rest of the world. Using Microsoft .NET's associated technologies for XML Web services development, SOA is presented as being a maturation process for organizational web services, implementing a high level of abstraction, and therefore, a greater degree of universal appeal by promoting broad component reusability. WSE 2.0 is then tackled, diving into the major areas of consideration for SOAP messaging (security, encryption, routing, reliability, policy creation/enforcement etc.). Hasan describes the importance and role of SOA within large, disparate systems, preaching the gospel of interface-based systems and use of service agents (mid-tier objects managing communications between web services, business components and type/operation interfaces). This builds on the same concept discussed by Microsoft's Yasser Shohoud as a major building block for advanced web services development in his seminal book, "Real World XML Web Services" (...). Hasan also offers a refreshing, pragmatic discussion on the debatable misconception of the true "benefits" of loosely-coupled web services within enterprise-grade distributed applications, presenting a decent case for tight coupling in certain situations. The book's prime example of an evolving stock quote service is appreciated a lot more than weak "Hello World" examples, and discrete enough to exhibit most of the advanced features of WSE 2.0 with a SOA slant. Although one of the prime tenets for WSE 2.0 is to facilitate web services in a transport-agnostic manner, many of the examples are geared toward SOAP messaging using HTTP, to the enjoyment of ASP.NET developers - something that's largely missing in the market today, with many current examples being WinForms apps. Desktop developers may grunt at the lack of representation in the book's examples for using other protocols (i.e., TCP, SMTP, etc.), but it's a minor price to pay. Also, the book does sufficiently and consistently make mention of WSE 2.0 development for those of us not married to Visual Studio .NET env

Developing distributed applications has become an increasingly indigenous part of a present-day developer's software life cycle. XML web services provide us an easier and standardized way to facilitate distributed communications. Service orientation takes this to another level, i.e. standardizing loose coupling of these services via contracts. Hasan's book provides answers for today's enterprise needs to learn and formulate their existing distributed communication frameworks as they shift towards Service Oriented Architecture. This book is about technology we can implement today; it's neither a superficial overview of terminologies nor is it a manager's guide or executive summary. Expert Service-Oriented Architecture in C# is the answered prayer of various developers like me who were looking for a book which comprehensively addresses SOA in Microsoft.NET and couldn't find much help. There are only a handful of books out there on this thriving discipline, Service Oriented Architecture, and most of them fall short in technical implementation details. Most importantly it answered my own skepticism of having another fancy TLA (three lettered acronym) and how can it change the way we program distributed apps today. You'll have to read it to get the answer. Hasan acquired Masters degree from one of the top 10 US schools and you'll see the academic excellence in his writing. His technical fluency, vocabulary and in-depth explanation are salient features what give this cutting edge technology book priority over its counterparts, if there are any. Expert Service-Oriented Architecture isn't just a good read about SOA but as title depicts, also a great reference for WSE 2.0. Individual chapters are categorized in a way that each chapter covers a topic of interest; WS-Security, Policy Frameworks, WS-Addressing & Routing, Design Patterns and so on. Therefore it provides excellent reference for WSE 2.0, a fairly new release from Microsoft providing support for latest developments in Web Services arena. Examples in this book are simplified but not trivial, simpler but not marginal and the style shows them coming from a software developer who encounter real world application architecture challenges. Jeffery touched various important topics concisely which a developers encounters either in practice or theory; for instance RPC vs. document literal invocation, web services building blocks, digital signing with x.509 certificate, integrating web services and MSMQ, XML schema definition etc. The last chapter, beyond WSE 2.0, I found very interesting since it addresses Microsoft's new breed of communications infrastructure built around the Web services architecture code name "Indigo". WSE 2.0 is here for a relatively small period of time till indigo kicks in with support for secure, reliable, and transacted messaging along with interoperability. However, future proofing the applications is what Hasan explained in this book and you have to read it to know it like E

I needed a book on the Web Services Enhancements (WSE) so I pre-ordered this one (there's not much else available). My expectations were low but to my great surprise this has turned out to be THE most useful computer book I have read all year. It currently sits on my desk next to Ingo Rammer's .NET Remoting (if you know this book, you'll know this is high praise). As for specifics: this book is a solid reference on building Web Services/SOA solutions using the newly released WSE 2.0. My SOA project has demanding requirements: strict security and policy using certificates and role-based authorization. Plus we need to track messages in case of system failures. This book gave me all the information I needed to design and get started on my project. (It also has a 10 or 12 page references section on other books and articles that was very helpful). For those who need it, the book provides an excellent discussion on XML messages, and how to construct schemas for custom data types. The book references design patterns and shows you how to use VS .NET tools to auto-generate proxy/stub classes based on your schemas. XML schemas = qualified custom types, and qualified types = fewer bugs! The second half of the book is solid WSE 2.0, reviewing all of the major specs that it implements using detailed code examples that I will use as templates for my own project. This book is impressive because it provides an end-to-end discussion, from architecting the messages, and the services, to implementing security, policy, routing, addressing and even secure conversation. I came away with a clear understanding of the concepts and a solid understanding of how WSE 2.0 works, and how to implement it in my project. This book teaches, and it makes a great reference. I HIGHLY recommend this book: it will change your whole approach to building Web services, and it will save you valuable time.