Books

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Succeeding with SOA: Realizing Business Value Through Total Architecture

Today, business processes and information systems are so tightly intertwined that they must be designed together, as parts of a total architecture, to realize enterprise goals. In Succeeding with SOA, Paul Brown shows how service-oriented architectures (SOAs) provide the best structure for such integration: clean, well-defined interfaces between collaborating entities. But even SOAs need to be correctly understood and implemented to avoid common failures. Drawing on decades of experience, Dr. Brown explains what business managers and IT architects absolutely need to know–including critical success factors–to undertake this essential work.

EasyJet: The Story of England’s Biggest Low-cost Airline

The low-cost aviation market in Britain took off thanks to two airlines: easyJet and Ireland’s Ryanair. EasyJet has always been a colourful enterprise, thanks to both its charismatic and self-promoting Greek founder, now Sir Stelios Haji- Ioannou, and its bright orange planes. Beginning with two leased 737s flying between Luton and Glasgow, it is now one of the biggest airlines in Europe and has led the way in webbased ticket sales. It has brought not only Spain, Portugal and the Highlands of Scotland within reach of every traveller’s pocket, but also new EU member countries like Slovenia and Estonia. Fully updated and revised, this is the first book to tell the story of one of our most successful companies.

SOA in Practice: The Art of Distributed System Design

This book demonstrates service-oriented architecture (SOA) as a concrete discipline rather than a hopeful collection of cloud charts. Built upon the author’s firsthand experience rolling out a SOA at a major corporation, SOA in Practice explains how SOA can simplify the creation and maintenance of large-scale applications. Whether your project involves a large set of Web Services-based components, or connects legacy applications to modern business processes, this book clarifies how — and whether — SOA fits your needs.

The Enterprise Architecture IT Project: The Urbanisation Paradigm

The basis for an Enterprise Architecture IT project comes from the identification of the changes necessary to implement the enterprise or organisations strategy, and the growing information needs arising from this, which increases the demand for the development of the IT system. The development of an IT system can be carried out using an urbanisation approach i.e. building an IT system using the metaphor of a city. This concept is based on the fact that in constructing or reorganising information systems, the reconstruction and modernisation involves permanent elements, as are found in a city. Although relatively new, this approach has been successfully employed in a number of projects over the past few years. The practical approach given in this book allows enterprises or organisations trying to safeguard the efficiency of their IT system, while minimising costs and risk, to implement the theory and put it into practice.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today’s emerging networked information environment. In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing—and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained—or lost—by the decisions we make today.

The Culture of the New Capitalism

In this provocative book Richard Sennett looks at the ways today’s global, ever-mutable form of capitalism is affecting our lives. He analyzes how changes in work ethic, in our attitudes toward merit and talent, and in public and private institutions have all contributed to what he terms “the specter of uselessness,” and he concludes with suggestions to counter this disturbing new culture.