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Web 2.0 Architectures: What entrepreneurs and information architects need to kno

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The term "software system architecture" means many things to many people. Coders look at the microcosm. Systems engineers look at the macrocosm. By nature, writing about the software system architecture is hard. Most times no one size is going to fit all.

Thus, I am always apprehensive about a book that purports to explain software system architecture in general. Usually such books are written by highfalutin Big Six consultants for the benefit of entrenched IT managers that need to be "in the know". In most cases neither party has the aptitude or real world technical background to grasp the technical topic at hand in a manner that is useful and accurate. As a result, because neither writer nor readers are real world, the book flops.

So here's the good news. O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Architectures does a more than competent job of explaining Web 2.0 enterprise system architecture. The book takes a real world approach. The first two chapters are a primer in the basics of the Internet and Web 2.0 based software systems. In the primer sections you'll learn about the fundamental technology static and various architectural patterns that make up web based enterprise systems: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Software as a Service (SaaS), Participation-Collaboration, Mash up, Semantic Web Grounding, to name a few.

Then in Chapter 3 the authors frame real world, web based systems such as AdSense, Flickr, BitTorrent,etc..., against architectural concepts, comparing older systems against the newer Web 2.0 counterparts, DoubleClick vs. AdSense, for example.

The writers consider the ability to think and conceptualize in terms of structured abstraction as the primary tool in the architect's toolkit. Thus, Chapter 4, 5 and 6 get you thinking in terms of Models and Patterns.

Chapter 7 serves as Web 2.0 reference/lexicon and Chapter 8 provides the call to action for creating Web 2.0 architectures that last.

After reading this book will you be able to get a job at Amazon designing its next generation Movies on Demand web service? The answer is no. It takes years of experience and some very expensive failures to understand the intricacies of designing and implementing a system of such enormity.

Will you have a formalized understanding of the thinking, patterns and implementations that surround modern Internet based software systems? Yes, by all means.

In terms of the nuts and bolts of the book, there are pros and cons. The book is short. This is good. You can read it in about 4 hours. The conventions used are clear and the writing style is engaging. There is ample reference to online links. Thus, for ease of use, you'll do well to read the book in the online Safari version.

One of the drawbacks of the book is that at times, the book introduces some pretty hard core technologies and then lends fleeting reference once introduced. For example, the book devotes a single paragraph to introducing the concept of the Enterprise Service Bus. Those of us that have worked with the ESB know that it is an ornery technology that comes with a considerable learning curve, and more considerable implementation curve. Yet the book glosses over it. However, such hit and run tactics are limited.

Overall, I found this book useful. If nothing else, it wrapped formal language around concepts that I have been carrying in my head for years. And, once the reseller discounts kick in, the price is right!

I definitely recommend this book as a common reference for any team of developers making modern enterprise level software.

This book sways between discussion and dissection - addressing entrepreneurs, curious technologists and architects. It's inconsistent in its treatment of the material it chooses to add to its scope. Fortunately, this doesn't mean the book isn't useful to read or fairly enjoyable in parts.

Early on the authors take on the considerable task of explaining Web 2.0. They use an approach in which 1.0 applications are compared to their 2.0 successors or competitors. This approach does not work for several reasons.

The 1.0 application on display has evolved since Tim O'Reilly picked the contrasting applications a while ago. So there is no good benchmark to use. The authors point this out in several places, which makes the whole comparison more kludgey. Instead of an architectural analysis that is crisp, the comparisons devolve into feature discussions. So what defines Web 2.0? A set of features, the approach, its execution? The resulting discussion doesn't really come out and clarify Web 2.0 any more or less than available material on the Internet.

However some central themes to emerge in this discussion that are put to good use later.

The second half of the book presents a reference architecture for Web 2.0. Its a decent chapter, but not comprehensive. I was very unclear about how to utilize the information that was presented in Chapter 5.

Chapter 7, which talks about Web 2.0 patterns at a deeper level, is easily the most enjoyable chapter of the book. Like it predecessors, its not comprehensive, but it covers important ground.

Each Web 2.0 pattern is explained very well. There is a paragraph on the context in which the pattern should be utilized. There is material on the pattern's static structure and dynamic behavior and notes on implementation (these are a little thin for some patterns). A nice section on gotchas (called consequences) is also available.

Some patterns are a little broad - for example, is Rich User Experience really a pattern or an expectation in the Web 2.0 context that consists of serveral, constantly evolving, well-understood patterns that encompass graphic design, usability and dynamic web programming? Fortunately, regardless of the approach, the resulting discussions in this chapter are all good ones.

Where do I begin? For a start the 'architecture' patterns are just 'features' that some web 2.0 companies have. It would be a bit of a stretch to call them patterns.
Also the comparison between web 1.0 companies and web 2.0 companies is laughable. Take for example "Akamai" vs "Bittorrent"; there is no comparison, Akamai is a content distribution network, their business model is to host data on their servers closer to users. Bit torrent is a filesharing network, mainly used to share open source and illegal files - it has no business model, it's just a tool. Usually when one compares something the things being compared must have a least something in common.
Take another example: "mp3.com" vs napster, MP3.com is a business, napster is NOT, it's a way to share songs illegally.
Another example: websites and blogs - no comparison, different focuses, they're completely different marketing channels!!
Yet another example: screen scaping and web services, again very different, can you order a book via screen scraping? NO! Web services provides both information and a service, screen scrapping only provides information.

Some quotes from the book to show the quality of the book:

"The Software as a Service (SaaS) Pattern
- Terms often associated with the Software as a Service pattern include:
Model-View-Controller (MVC)
Some people consider SaaS a specialization of the MVC pattern that distributes the Model, View, and Controller (or parts thereof) over multiple resources located on the Internet. It is strongly related to SaaS, and most SaaS providers follow the MVC pattern when implementing SaaS."

Completely wrong, not related whatsoever !!, they're at two completely different levels of abstraction. SaaS just refers to something hosted on the internet/usually self provisioning/usually multi-tenanted. MVC is a design pattern 1 step above coding.

""One of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 developers and architects has been a dismissal of many traditional enterprise architecture patterns."

Misses the boat completely; the majority of web 2.0 applications aren't actually mission critical - the author would find in most business environments, architects following traditional enterprise architecture pattterns religiously. There's a big difference between facebook going down for 2 hrs and a major banking system.

The book is just a lot of buzzwords, with very poorly written analysis of web2.0.

If you are trying to decipher web 2.0 related terms, acronyms and buzzwords, you are definitely not alone. It is hard to quantify what exactly a web 2.0 design entails; "I know it when I see it" does not help explaining the characteristic features of modern web architecture including design patterns, core models, reference architectures and solution patterns. "Web 2.0 Architectures" by Governor, Hinchcliffe and Nickull attempts to crack the code of web 2.0 jargon and strives to help reader make sense of this ever changing web ecosystem.

The well written and organized book is divided into eight chapters which discuss design patterns, reference models and architecture artifacts. The web 2.0 patterns discussed in the book includes Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Collaborative Tagging (folksonomy), Synchronized Web, SaaS (cloud computing), Persistent Rights Management, Mashup, Rich User Experience, Participation/Collaboration, Asynchronous Particle Update, ,Semantic Web Grounding and Structured Information. This categorization helps distinguish salient features of a web 2.0 architecture and help define what richness actually means in a rich internet application.

If you have been working in the field long enough, the meme map on page # 63 will help skimming through chapter 3 (which contains web 2.0 example sites) so you can get to the core of the book. Chapters 4 to 7 discuss specific patterns for web 2.0, models, and reference architectures. As mentioned in the book's title as well as title of this review, "web 2.0 architectures" is focused on big picture architectural overview of the Web 2.0. Even though it's not a 10000 ft. abstract overview whitepaper, it also does not converse nitty gritty details of building a 2.0 app using jquery and node.js. This text is about concepts, models, reference architectures and common recurring themes in web 2.0 sites. It does not concern itself with specific technologies and implementation details but rather talk about the common paradigm. Therefore, if you are considering it as a cookbook/recipes book for web 2.0 applications, you will be sorely disappointed. However, if you are a web engineer / architect or a technologist interested in the underlying design patterns and attributes of web 2.0, this book is for you.

This book was a good read and gave me the insight I needed for this emerging technology. Well worth the money spent.