Executive's Guide to Web Services (SOA, Service-Oriented Architecture)

Book Description

Discover how Web services can improve cost-savings and make your organization more competitive. You’ll get summaries of developing standards, current vendor positions (Microsoft, Novell, IBM, Oracle, Sun), and industry examples of Web services solutions and benefits.

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Customer Reviews:

Good, clear read.......2004-04-13

A good primer, clearly defined concepts and a writing style that cuts thru the jargon right to the point. Others have expounded the overall virtues of the book, I'll only echo the earlier review praising Chapter 2's definitions.

If you are an executive, senior manager, or just an IT professional looking for the "no BS" answer, and need a clear, concise overview of this sometimes complicated subject so you can make informed decisions on utilizing (or recommending) web services in your business, this book is for you.

Executive guide is right........2004-03-06

There is not enough detail here to make this book worth the money. Don't waist your time, there are many other books here that will fill in the details, this is not one of them.

Make Business Sense of Your Web Initiatives.......2003-08-11

Web-based initiatives can be as simple or complex as looking at the night sky. The technology choices from programming languages to servers to networks to security can be overwhelming. Add to the mix the types of Internet-based business systems desired and demanded by customers along with the ability to implement them and you can find a state of confusion and uncertainty.

Eric and Mark do a superb job of helping executives understand how to take realistic steps to solve the technology conundrum and how best to approach Web-based initiatives that will bring the greatest value to achieving business goals. Without such a book, this journey can be daunting.

The thought leadership presented in the book takes the reader from the application of innovative uses of current technologies to the leading edge of future applications and architectures; all compartmentalized into four phases of adoption.

A great dissertation that is ahead of the pack in toning down the hype of Web Services while presenting a realistic view of the tremendous value that can be achieved.

A must read for anyone venturing into Web Services!.......2003-05-21

Given the wide spread industry hype surrounding Web Services, and the appearance that every software vendor has their own definition and perspective on what really constitutes a Web Service, what do you get - A whole heap of confusion!!

In tackling this confusion "Executive's Guide to Web Services," does a great job of explaining what Web Services are, and separating the business realities from the overblown hype. As such this book is recommended reading for anyone who is looking for a foundation upon which to really understand this emerging subject space.

In this book Marks and Werrell discuss:

- What differentiates Web Services from previous IT trends
- The concepts and standards that make Web Services possible
- The rational for using Web Services to increase organizational flexibility and agility
- Current and future business scenarios for reducing costs and increasing revenues
- How and where to begin using Web Services (as well as where not!)
- Predominant software vendors in the Web Services space, and their market positions

Overall the book avoids technical discussions, favoring a business centric perspective, from which strategic and tactical business considerations are examined. If you are looking for a guide on how to code your first Web Services program, this is not the book for you, this topics is left to the numerous implementation books already out there.

In this book you will find a solid Web Services foundation that will arm you with a good perspective on what Web Services are, as well as where and when to use them today. You will also gain the knowledge and understanding necessary to discern Web Services reality from hype - do not underestimate how valuable this knowledge is for early forays into implementation of Web Services!

Great job explaining Web Services.......2003-05-06

"Executive's Guide to Web Services" starts out by providing real world examples of how and where Web services are being used today (e.g. Dunn & Bradstreet, Dell etc). These examples are used as a backdrop from which Web services concepts are introduced. Chapter 2, "Standards, Concepts and Terminology" is without doubt the most readable and comprehensive Web services primer that I've yet to find - it's worth buying the book for this chapter alone!

CONTENT:
Using chapter 2 as a foundation, later chapters further explore what Web services are, and what they can (and can't) do for businesses. Key topics covered include:
o Web Service Adoption - Looks at the hype surrounding Web services and outlines what's really achievable today. Also, details what the authors refer to as the "Web services Adoption Lifecycle," which maps the likely adoption and business usage of Web services over the next 3-5 years.
o Where to Begin - A step by step analysis of how, where, and when to use Web services for your business.
o Strategic/Vertical Market Implications - The medium to long terms strategic implications of Web services adoption.
o Architecting for Competitive Advantage - A conceptual discussion of how Web services can be used to create a more agile and flexible infrastructure, which is more adaptive to the fluidity of today's market dynamics.

CONCLUSIONS:
Overall, "Executive's Guide to Web Services" does a great job of explaining what Web services are, where and when to use them, and how they can be used to improve internal and inter-company operating efficiencies. The book covers each topic comprehensively, and does a good job of explaining complex concepts in a plain, easy to understand language.
Whether you are only just beginning to look into Web services, or you want to gain additional insights into how your business should look to use Web services, "Executive's Guide to Web Services" will be a good choice.

Good Choice - Highly Recommended.

Book Description

Defying the classical definitions of solids and liquids, complex fluids include polymers, colloids, emulsions, foams, gels, liquid crystals, surfactants, and other materials that form flowable microstructures. They are vital to industries that produce polymers (e.g., plastic packaging), colloids (paint), foods (ketchup), and consumer products (toothpaste and shampoo), and are also used in countless other products manufactured by the petroleum, microelectronics, and pharmaceutical industries. The first advanced textbook on this subject, The Structure and Rheology of Complex Fluids provides a multidisciplinary and comprehensive introduction to these fascinating and important substances. It offers an up-to-date synopsis of the relationship between the microstructure of complex fluids and their mechanical and flow properties, and also emphasizes the similarities and differences among the various types of complex fluids. Easy to read, it includes over 350 illustrations, extensive literature citations, and many interesting problems, worked examples, and practical applications. Featuring coverage of both foundational material and special topics, this text is highly adaptable for use in a one- or two-semester graduate-level course in chemical engineering, materials science, or physics. It also serves as a valuable monograph for academic and industrial researchers and as a reference book for researchers and educators.

Customer Reviews:

Essential text for Dynamics of Complex Fluids!.......2004-12-12

In this advanced text, Larson presents essential understanding required to appreciate the physics and dynamics of complex fluids (or soft condensed matter). In fact, he starts each chapter by presenting comprehensive introduction to the complex fluid, and then proceeds to provide detailed and erudite experimetal and theoretical insight into dynamical behavior.

The chapters include: polymers, glassy liquids, polymer gels, particulate suspensions, particulate gels, electro- and magneto-responsive suspensions, foams, emulsions and blends and lastly liquid crystals, liquid crystalline polymers, surfactant solutions and block copolymers. Each chapter in itself a complete overview of the structure and rheology of that system. It is written in a very readable fashion for self education, and also could serve as an excellent text for graduate courses.

Larson has presented the essential theoretical ideas about the chosen substance, summarised all the important references, and included many experimental results and other illustrations, mulled over solved and unsolved issues, provided applications, solved and unsolved examples, and created a text that every serious student, practioner in the dynamics of any of the complex fluids discussed in this book must have on his shelf. If you are just starting out as a researcher in the structure and rheology of gels, polymers, liquid crystals or block copolymers, this book is a perfect starting point for it provides necessary detail and knowhow with a clarity that would appeal to students across all disciplines. For polymer dynamics, the texts by Doi-Edwards and de Gennes; for liquid crystals by de Gennes; for colloidal dispersions by Russel and for meaty details of condensed matter physics the textbook by Lubensky and Chaikan will prove as inevitable supplementary reading.

Excellent Current Review.......2000-05-24

This book is an excellent review of the rheology of complex fluids and polymers. I would highly recommend this book to thesis students and researchers.

Book Description

Biological treatment, new designs for waste sites, computer models of pollution situations, and the latest in lining and other containment options are covered in this volume. It also discusses techniques for discovering and identifying sources of contamination.

Book Description

An expert survey of new synchrotron radiation sources and applications
Synchrotron radiation continues to be an indispensable tool for physicists, materials scientists, chemists, and macromolecular crystallographers. Researchers in such fields as medicine, geological and environmental studies, structural genomics, and archaeology are finding ever more uses for this technology.
This book discusses new third generation synchrotron radiation sources such as the Advanced Photon Source (APS), the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), and the Super Photon Ring-8 GeV (Spring-8). Topics such as accelerator design, radiation properties, and x-ray optics are given detailed treatment.
With its coverage of both established and experimental techniques, applications, and specialized topics-all written by renowned experts and practitioners-Third Generation Hard X-ray Synchrotron Radiation Sources provides an indispensable, up-to-date account of the current state of the art.

Book Description

Ella Kennedy may not be perfect, but she's smart, she's dedicated, and she's finally managed to find a fascinating thesis subject in the morass of Marxist political theory: Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl and a bright light in the Marxist movement, who famously declined after a disastrous love affair. With tenacity, with vigor, Ella Kennedy, Ph.D. student extraordinaire, begins delving into the world of Eleanor just as she takes a job setting up a Marxist mail-order catalogue at the fledgling Institute of Thought in Washington, D.C. -- a veritable three-ring circus.

When Ella's own life begins to parallel Eleanor's -- right down to the domineering father (Ella's is known as the king of discount merchandising) and the distant yet brilliant lover -- the theoretical, the political, and the personal collide in a hilarious romp of a novel. Wacky, heartwarming, and deliciously smart, this novel of heartbreak and hilarity on the doctoral circuit is the intersection of Laura Zigman, Nora Ephron, and Richard Russo.

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Ella Kennedy is in a rut. Nearly thirty, she's at risk of becoming both a perpetual graduate student and a continual failure at relationships. After spending three years at Columbia University ripping up outlines for her thesis topic of Marxist scholarship, she takes a job in Washington, D.C., at the fledgling Institute of Thought. Her assignment: establish a Web site and mail-order catalogue to market Karl Marx paraphernalia. Her dilemma: she is both computer illiterate and distracted by a thesis topic that she finds engaging. Against her advisor's wishes, she sets out to document the tragic life of Karl Marx's daughter Eleanor -- a brilliant woman who fell apart during the course of a bad relationship. Meanwhile, Ella meets Nigel Lark, an adorably disheveled ornithologist with a delicious British accent; it is love at first sight. But as their relationship develops, Ella realizes that her own life is starting to mirror Eleanor's. For one thing, Nigel wears a wedding band and he doesn't want to talk about it... Deftly weaving fact and fiction, past and present, socialist theory and side-splitting humor, Susan Coll presents a warm and witty novel in the tradition of Cathleen Schine, Laura Zigman, and the Ephron sisters. karlmarx.com is a love story full of wonderful absurdities.

Customer Reviews:

Funny first novel about life as a graduate student.......2001-12-03

Read KARLMARX.COM, a first novel by Susan Coll . . . this funny tale is about a graduate student whose life is turned upside down by both her lover and employer . . . in addition, she is having troubles finishing her dissertation about Eleanor Marx (the youngest daughter of Karl) . . . eventually,the lives of the graduate student and Eleanor Marx run parallel tracks--and that is what makes this book so interesting to read.

Also, Cool has a real feel for dialogue . . . and I found myself laughing out loud several times.

There were many memorable passages; among them:
That my parents did not approve of my flirtation with campus communism went without saying. But then it was tough to recall a time when any of my variously fleeting ideologies had earned their praise. Certainly not when,as an eleven-year-old, I had liberated all of the meat in our sub-zero freezer
and fed it to the neighbor's dog in a zealous attack of vegetarianism. Nor did they show much enthusiasim when I became enamored of existentialism as a brooding high school junior and took to chain-smoking cigarettes and quoting Satre at dinner.

My parents both stopped chewing and stared, enchanted. No one had ever complimented my mother on her cooking before. Eating my mother's cooking was simply something we tolerated, like having our teeth cleaned. I dared not tell them aobut the marriage proposal. My father would probably drop his fork and run directly to the phone to book the caterer.

A picnic! I was thrilled. What child does not love a picnic? What child is not inordinately thrilled by the prospect of schlepping otherwise mundane food outside and then sitting on the ground and eating it while batting away bees and stomping on ants?

Nice little book from first time author.......2001-05-12

I'd like to add half a star to make it a 3-1/2 star rating, but format's format

I live in DC, so maybe that adds to why a liked it, but I think this book would generally appeal to any person who has a habit of getting stuck in absurd situations and is too shy or directionless to pull out. That's the main character's flaw. It was graduate school for me, as well as for main character Ella Kennedy.

Ella faces the absurdities of an unfinished disertation, her DC think-tank, and relationships with her parents, boyfriend, and ex-bestfriend. At the same time, I enjoyed the reconsiderations of Karl Marx, and the parallel story of Karl Marx's doomed daughter (the subject of Ella's errant disertation).

But more entertaining for me were the generational differences Ella must ford through; from her boss's instruction to whip out a web-page overnight (even though the computer doesn't even have a modem) to her super-capitalist dad who is uninterestedly humored by her daughter's dabblings in the history of Marx. A live in British boyfriend who smokes like a chimney and can only communicate when the subject is orinthology -- although not a cross-generation relationship -- presents similar difficulties to Ella just the same.

Although some plots develop in a whacky direction, they resolve themselves well before they reach ridiculously unbelievable levels. The result is a quick book of very human situations and dialouge filled with good solid comedy.

KarlMark.Com is a great title for a very good book!.......2001-04-01

Put this book on your summer reading list! Author Susan Coll's strength lies in her brilliant dialogue.

Average customer rating:

karlmarx. com: A Love Story
Susan Coll
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1416552081

Book Description

Ella Kennedy is in a rut. Nearly 30, it seems she is on the verge of becoming both a perpetual graduate student and a continual failure at relationships. She has spent some three years at Columbia University ripping up outlines for thesis topics as her chosen field of Marxist scholarship becomes increasingly irrelevant. Out of money and temporarily estranged from her obscenely wealthy father---America's king of discount merchandising---she is forced to take a job in Washington D.C. at the fledgling Institute of Thought. Her assignment: establish a web site and mail order catalogue to market Karl Marx paraphernalia. Her dilemma: she is computer illiterate, and is also distracted by the fact that she has finally found a thesis topic that she finds engaging. Against the advice of her advisor, she sets out to document the tragic life of Karl Marx's youngest daughter, Eleanor---a brilliant woman who self-destructed during the course of a bad relationship. Meanwhile, her first day on the job Ella finds a lost ornithologist named Nigel Lark at the door. He is adorably disheveled and has a delicious accent and it is love at first sight. As their relationship quickly develops, however, it occurs to Ella that her own life is beginning to parallel the unfortunate path of her dissertation subject. For one thing, Nigel wears a wedding band on his left hand and he doesn't want to talk about it.

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