Web Services, Service-Oriented Architectures, and Cloud Computing, Second Edition

Book Preface

Douglas K. Barry with David Dick

One of the toughest jobs for managers today is keeping up with the rapid changes in technology. An important change in technology is that the future of software will involve service-oriented architectures (SOAs) with some form of cloud computing. More and more services are available on the Internet. Nearly every day we discover new opportunities to connect these services to create SOAs. These SOAs will require less custom software in organizations, but will likely demand more creativity in the selection and assembly of services. This is a natural evolution of software technology and will be explained in this book.

This book is a guide for the savvy manager who wants to capitalize on the wave of change that is occurring with Web services, SOAs, and, more recently, cloud computing. The changes wrought by these technologies will require both a basic grasp of the technologies and an effective way to deal with how these changes will affect the people who build and use the systems in our organizations. This book covers both issues. Managers at all levels of all organizations must be aware of both the changes that we are now seeing and ways to deal with issues created by those changes.

The intent of this book is to give you an opportunity to consider some ideas and advice that just might make it easier for your organization to realize the potential benefits in Web services, SOAs, and cloud computing. No crystal ball exists to tell us the services that will be available tomorrow. Undoubtedly, there will many innovative services that we cannot envision at this time. For that reason, this book presents a straightforward approach that will help you get your organization ready to take advantage of a SOA—in whatever form it takes. This is a nontechnical book on a technical subject. It assumes no prior knowledge of the technology. It is written with a high-level view at the beginning of the book. As the book progresses, technical details are introduced and explained. You can stop reading at any point once you have enough understanding for your use.

Business Opportunities Addressed

The technologies and concepts described in this book can:
Expand your information technology options. n Make your information technology systems more flexible and responsive. n Reduce development time. n Reduce maintenance costs.

This book will explain why these promises can be fulfilled. Read through to the end of Part II to see why the technology discussed will eliminate most technological barriers to integrating systems. Part III discusses why the biggest challenge for managers is handling the people issues related to this change. That part of the book also provides tips on how to make development easier.