The Making of Slap Shot: Behind the Scenes of the Greatest Hockey Movie Ever Made »

Judith Hurwitz (President & CEO), Robin Bloor (Partner & Senior Consultant), Marcia Kaufman (Partner & COO), and Fern Halper (Partner & Senior Data Management Strategist) are executives at Hurwitz & Associates, strategy consultants specializing in data and service management and service oriented architecture. The team works with industry leaders on strategy and planning.

Understand why SOA is important for business innovation and change

Feeling overwhelmed by the buzz about service oriented architecture? Take heart! This bestselling guide makes it easy to understand what SOA is, why it's important, and how your business can benefit. You'll discover how to create reusable, flexible systems; how IT and management team up to make SOA work; and what SOA means to your bottom line.

• What it is — see how SOA is designed for maximum adaptability
• Building blocks — examine the main components of SOA and how they work
• Break it to fix it — learn to deconstruct business processes and applications to identify their components, then put them together in new ways
• The "X" factor — explore XML and how it's used in SOA
• Who's the governor? — develop a governance strategy for SOA based on your company's business rules and requirements
• Keep it clean — find out how to assure data quality and consistency
• Everything in balance — understand SOA in context with Web 2.0, unified communications, and cloud computing

Open the book and find:

• An easy test to determine whether you need SOA
• Four common pitfalls and how to avoid them
• Lessons learned from successful IT executives
• The significance of using a registry and repository
• How to leverage existing assets
• Why identity management software matters for SOA
• The benefits of SOA service management
• The ROI of SOA from real-world experiences

FOREWORD.

PROLOGUE.

CHAPTER 1: Entertainment for the Whole Family!

CHAPTER 2: The Toughest Team in the Federal League.

CHAPTER 3: Folk Heroes.

CHAPTER 4: Finding a Buyer.

CHAPTER 5: The Casting Process.

CHAPTER 6: The story on That Dog.

CHAPTER 7: Believing Your Freaking Eyes.

CHAPTER 8: Letting 'Em Know You're There.

CHAPTER 9: Right Back Where We Started From.

CHAPTER 10: Violent, Bloody and Thoroughly Revolting.

CHAPTER 11: We All Saw it With Our Own Eyes.

CHAPTER 12: Still Putting on the Foil.

CHAPTER 13: A Life of Its Own.

CHAPTER 14: Defending the Honor of Charlestown.

EPILOGUE.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

INDEX.