Customer Reviews

Getting Started With Oracle SOA Suite 11g R1 - A Hands-On Tutorial

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A brief background on my credentials - I'm with Interway , a company that provides software products to companies to help with their SOA needs (among other things).

Getting Started With Oracle SOA Suite 11g R1 - A Hands-On Tutorial ([...]) is about SOA Suite 11gR1 and all it's components.

In July 2009 Oracle has announced release of new product line Oracle Fusion Middleware 11gR1. Main SOA oriented software of this release is Oracle SOA Suite. In this book, there are all components of Oracle SOA Suite 11.1.1.2.0 release conceptually explained.

Authors of publication were part of Oracle SOA Suite 11g design team and took part also in development team. They brought interesting perspective to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in conjunction with Service Composite Architecture (SCA). SCA as technology and vendor neutral standard model has to conform to SOA principles and paradigms.

Book gives to reader best value if reader has experienced with concepts used in SOA Suite 10g. While reading this book, reader will get familiar with new concepts and possibilities of usage SOA Suite 11g which is using SCA model.

Release 11g has gone through many conceptual changes comparing to product line 10g. As application server is in use WebLogic and not OC4J, which was used in 10g. Due to this fact there is lack of description about WebLogic itself. WebLogic architecture and installation is explained only as part of installation of SOA Suite. The user, which is trying to install and use SOA suite deployed in WebLogic, has not enough information for usage and WebLogic configuration. On the other hand, there is well-detailed described SCA model. In beginning of the book there is mentioned motivation for SCA and SOA. How SCA is conforming to SOA principles. Authors have used definition and quotations from "bible" of SOA: "Principles of Service Design" from Thomas Erl.

Book contains installation guides for developer and test environment. There is missing any conceptual information about installation and configuration of SOA Suite in production environment and in high availability mode. It should be there; at least in form of architectural concepts and recommendation as such installation and configuration is most required in enterprise (mission critical) environment. After installation guide follows well-explained installation of developer IDE - JDeveloper. Only as optional step is mentioned "parallel" product with SCA mediator - Oracle Service Bus (OSB). It is product, which was developed by company BEA. All products of BEA (including WebLogic) were brought to Oracle portfolios by acquisition prior release Fusion Middleware 11g. Installation information regarding developer IDE for OSB - Eclipse is not mentioned in book at all.

Following chapter in book familliarize us with JDeveloper IDE. Topic as setting the SOA project, creating, deloying SOA compozite aplications will appreciate starting developers in Oracle SOA field. Users already experienced with this from 10g line will be already familiar with those concepts. Next, there are explained components of SOA Suite as Mediator, File Adapter, JMS Adapter, WS Adapter, BPEL, Human Task and Business Rules. The mentioned example's URL in book is invalid. If user will try to search for those examples will have to spend some time on Oracle OTN pages, as URL reference is invalid. Active reader of the book has possibility to follow each chapter and create/develop SOA project in his JDeveloper IDE. However all this topic are complex and authors focus to conceptual explanation of functionality, the reader will probably have implementation difficulties with those examples and will need to look for more necessary information out of scope the book in order to successfully build and deploy those examples.

It is very positive, that authors mentioned also life cycles aspect of SOA service composites. You will find some life cycle scenarios about design phase, development phase, testing phase and deployment phase. Some deployment ant scripts are shown in order to get familiar with ant technology, which is using JDeveloper and automated, continues integration. Also some test unit as part of test framework available in JDeveloper is shown.

OSB example shows how to create OSB system in OSB console. As already mentioned OSB IDE is not part of this book. This is only as optional step and quick look into OSB.

More advanced topic follows as: SCA Error Handling, Securing WS using policies and WebLogic OWSM, setting BAM and BPEL for monitoring business metrics, event driven approach firstly introduced in 11g - EDN, SDO and B2B support in 11g.

Especially last advanced topics are mentioned from high-level perspective. Reader will know concept about that and will have opportunity to understand principle of approach and functionality. By scope it is not possible to cover more detailed explanation of those topic in this book.

I suggest this book to readers, who needs efficiently get acquainted with SOA Suite 11g (11.1.1.1.2.0) and new concepts as SDO, EDN, OSB, and B2B. In case if reader expects that after reading this book and exercising with samples in book will become SOA 11g developer, then this expectation is wrong and starting with this book reader/developer is on beginning with work/studying with advanced and new topics brought to SOA Suite 11g as part of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11gR1.

With this edited tutorial covering all the parts of SOA Suite 11g (from BPEL, via Mediator, Rules, as well as Human Workflow - all the way to B2B and Oracle's Service Bus) it's by far the best way to get a head start into the fundamentals of the platform at unprecedented breath.

Heidi and her team have done a tremendous job to structure the labs and hands-on exercises in a didactic, explanatory way - with solutions all the way through. This way the book serves not just as a tutorial, but also as a reference bible when it comes to implementation of specific features and concepts.

Clemens Utschig-Utschig, Platform Architect, SOA Suite

An excellent book to learn Oracle SOA Suite 11g, including the latest version of the products. The book walks you through creating composite applications covering BPEL, Mediator, BAM, EM, WF and Rules components via building non-trivial samples in a very intuitive way by clearly defined steps - for this alone, this books deserves 5 stars! However it goes beyond, it also includes topics such as Web Services, JMS, Database, LDAP Adapters, Error Handling, Event Networks, and Unit Testing in a way to support SOA concepts and SOA Suite 11g. By the time you finished the book, completed the samples/tutorials, you are at a pretty good level of understanding of SOA and SOA Suite and hands on experience to take to next level... I highly recommend this book to both 10g experienced (a lot of new features and updates in 11g!) and new beginners.

Although this book provides an excellent step-by-step guide to using the fundamental features of Oracle SOA Suite 11gR1, it doesn't go into nearly enough detail for an experienced middle-ware developer like me. The chapter on JMS is a good case in point. It only covers how to publish a single XML message to a single JMS queue. It says nothing about delivering to multiple queues based on message content, or mention anything about using JMS Headers or User Properties, or handling any other type of payload apart from XML.

At the end of the day, although I realize that the subject matter is too vast to cover in-depth for each potential topic, I still felt disappointed by this book.

This is an excellent book for people wanting to learn SOA Suite 11g.

The composite application created during the tutorial is non-trivial and includes Web Services, BPEL, Business Rules, JMS, Database Adapters, BAM, Error Handling, Eventing, Unit Testing and more.

The book provides everything you need to learn SOA Suite 11g, clearly written and at a nice pace.

I highly recommend it.

The steps are very clear for begginers.

I'm happy with the purchase.

Juanje

If you believe, as I do, that an example is worth ten thousand words, and you are interested in getting a working knowledge of Oracle SOA Suite, then this book is for you.

The examples are well thought through: they are simple, but relevant. Step by step, you build an order management application.

In other books the examples are so simple (Hello world, etc) that it is difficult to grasp the usefulness of the technology you are trying to learn. Not in this case: as each chapter deals with a new feature of SOA, you add a new feature to the sample application that makes it more realistic and closer to what a real SOA application must look like.

The book includes all the supporting files necessary to follow the application along and it is clear that the authors have spent a great deal of time making sure that readers can follow the examples.

I have no hesitation in giving this book five stars.

This is a very substantive guide. The examples the book works through are good representatives of their underlying concepts and are clearly presented. Each chapter has quick-build instructions in the end that really save time when you are familiar with a given area and do not need step-by-step guidance. This is one of the better tutorial books I have seen in the last few years.

Chapter 4 (addresses the installation and configuration issues) has been very valuable to me and is alone worth the price of the book.

SOA is a broad concept that can be over whelming even to seasoned developers. This book guides you carefully through the essence of SOA, software installations (which worked surprise!) and very good examples.

If you need to learn about SOA very quickly or working on a SOA project, I recommend this book as a tutorial or reference.