This is the book for the large organization trying to rationalize its IT assets and establish an agile platform for the future. By highlighting risk and rewards, Thomas Erl brings clarity to how Service Orientation can be applied to ensure a responsive IT organization. This book finally brings software engineering principles to address the real world development challenges being faced. To effectively serve the business, let alone embrace SOA, everyone involved should be familiar with the concepts investigated here. Thomas Erl thoroughly clarifies the nuances and defines the practice of service design. Features* Provides much needed expert guidance in the form of proven design principles to minimize the risk and maximize the potential of service delivery in support of SOA* Color is used throughout to organize the principles into distinct collections* Blends plain English coverage of concepts and principles with real world case studies About The Author Thomas Erl is the world's top-selling SOA author and the Series Editor of the Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl "http://www.soabooks.com/" His first two books, Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design have become international bestsellers and have been formally endorsed by senior members of major software organizations, such as IBM, Sun, and Microsoft. Thomas is also the founder of SOA Systems Inc. “http://www.soasystems.com/"a company specializing in SOA training and strategic consulting services with a vendor-agnostic focus. Through his work with standards organizations and independent research efforts, Thomas has made significant contributions to the SOA industry, most notably in the areas of service-orientation and SOA methodology. Thomas has had numerous articles and papers published on Web sites and in industry trade magazines, and is a speaker and instructor for private and public events. To learn more, visit “http://www.thomaserl.com/" Table Of Contents Part I: Fundamentals* Introduction* Case Study Background* Service-Oriented Computing and SOA* Service-Orientation* Understanding Design Principles Part II: Design Principles* Service Contracts (Standardization and Design)* Service Coupling (Intra-Service and Consumer Dependencies)* Service Abstraction (Information Hiding and Meta Abstraction Types)* Service Reusability (Commercial and Agnostic Design)* Service Autonomy (Processing Boundaries and Control)* Service Statelessness (State Management Deferral and Stateless Design)* Service Discoverability (Interpretability and Communication)* Service Composability (Composition Member Design and Complex Compositions) Part III: Supplemental* Service-Orientation and Object-Orientation: A Comparison of Principles and Concepts* Supporting Practices* Mapping Service-Orientation Principles to Strategic Goals Table of Contents Part I: Fundamentals ?Introduction ?Case Study Background ?Service-Oriented Computing and SOA ?Service-Orientation ?Understanding Design Principles Part II: Design Principles ?Service Contracts (Standardization and Design) ?Service Coupling (Intra-Service and Consumer Dependencies) ?Service Abstraction (Information Hiding and Meta Abstraction Types) ?Service Reusability (Commercial and Agnostic Design) ?Service Autonomy (Processing Boundaries and Control) ?Service Statelessness (State Management Deferral and Stateless Design) ?Service Discoverability (Interpretability and Communication) ?Service Composability (Composition Member Design and Complex Compositions) Part III: Supplemental •Service-Orientation and Object-Orientation: A Comparison of Principles and Concepts •Supporting Practices •Mapping Service-Orientation Principles to Strategic Goals