Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)All it talks about is Amazon's EC2, S3, MapReduce. It does not talk about "Application Architecture". It does not have ideas about how to break up traditional programs into MapReduce paradigm. It should be called Cloud Operations Architecture. If it was named by that title, I'd give it 5 stars. The book itself is not bad, but it will get obsolete very quickly due to its specificity to Amazon.
subtitle should be :Building Applications and Infrastructure in Amazon Cloud

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If you're involved in planning IT infrastructure as a network or system architect, system administrator, or developer, this book will help you adapt your skills to work with these highly scalable, highly redundant infrastructure services. While analysts hotly debate the advantages and risks of cloud computing, IT staff and programmers are left to determine whether and how to put their applications into these virtualized services. Cloud Application Architectures provides answers -- and critical guidance -- on issues of cost, availability, performance, scaling, privacy, and security. With Cloud Application Architectures, you will:



Understand the differences between traditional deployment and cloud computing
Determine whether moving existing applications to the cloud makes technical and business sense
Analyze and compare the long-term costs of cloud services, traditional hosting, and owning dedicated servers
Learn how to build a transactional web application for the cloud or migrate one to it
Understand how the cloud helps you better prepare for disaster recovery
Change your perspective on application scaling

To provide realistic examples of the book's principles in action, the author delves into some of the choices and operations available on Amazon Web Services, and includes high-level summaries of several of the other services available on the market today.Cloud Application Architectures provides best practices that apply to every available cloud service. Learn how to make the transition to the cloud and prepare your web applications to succeed.

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Cloud Computing For Dummies Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)but for a few extra dollars you can get much better bang for the buck. Hurwitz has made a great improvement over her SOA book. Cloud Computing for Dummies is well organized and keeps to the mainstream of current thought on the subject. All the same it is superficial and padded with questionable and obsolescent details such as pricing structures that were copied from vendor sites.
You'll find Cloud Computing Explained (Rhoton) is easier to read and describes what cloud computing involves more thoroughly. Cloud COmputing and SOA Convergence (Linthicum) presents SOA and how it relates to cloud computing very well. That's important because architecture is key to cloud computing. Cloud Application Architectures (Reese) has a narrow Amazon focus but some of his discussion of resilience applies generally. You'll also want to look at Cloud Security and Privacy (Mather). There is no way you can implement cloud services without a careful look at data security issues.
The bottom line is that cloud computing is a vast subject. If you are serious about it and want to understand every aspect of it then you have to dish out a handsome sum and get at least four books. On top of that there are special focus books on each of the service providers that could be pertinent depending on which services you choose. You can get detailed information online and in the blogosphere but it's not as easy as reading it in a book.
If you are on a tight budget and just want to skim the headlines this book may be just right for you. Elseways I advise further research.

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The easy way to understand and implement cloud computing technology written by a team of experts

Cloud computing can be difficult to understand at first, but the cost-saving possibilities are great and many companies are getting on board. If you've been put in charge of implementing cloud computing, this straightforward, plain-English guide clears up the confusion and helps you get your plan in place.
You'll learn how cloud computing enables you to run a more green IT infrastructure, and access technology-enabled services from the Internet ("in the cloud") without having to understand, manage, or invest in the technology infrastructure that supports them. You'll also find out what you need to consider when implementing a plan, how to handle security issues, and more.
Cloud computing is a way for businesses to take advantage of storage and virtual services through the Internet, saving money on infrastructure and support
This book provides a clear definition of cloud computing from the utility computing standpoint and also addresses security concerns
Offers practical guidance on delivering and managing cloud computing services effectively and efficiently
Presents a proactive and pragmatic approach to implementing cloud computing in any organization
Helps IT managers and staff understand the benefits and challenges of cloud computing, how to select a service, and what's involved in getting it up and running
Highly experienced author team consults and gives presentations on emerging technologies

Cloud Computing For Dummies gets straight to the point, providing the practical information you need to know.

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iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Given the inroads that the iPad is making in the Enterprise, the book is very timely and the content serves as a good commentary on many aspects related to the adoption of the iPad for Enterprise use.
-The book is organized into five parts: Strategy, Architecture, Design, Development and Deployment. This organization works very well to cover the content of this book.
-iPad in the Enterprise is written with a broad set of enterprise readers in mind - IT and non IT executives, architects as well as developers. Different parts are focused on different types of readers and as such each part is fully contained and can be read on its own.
-The enterprise focus is maintained well throughout the book, except for a couple of areas where the treatment of the content does not quite do justice to the enterprise focus.
I provide a detailed book review here on my blog on PROPELICS


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Discover how to plan, design, develop, and deploy iPad apps for the enterpriseHaving taken the enterprise by storm, iPads are now in the handsof workers in virtually every level of companies in almost every industry, andusers are beginning to demand line-of-business applications to help them bemore productive and efficient from wherever they are. From businessintelligence and executive dashboards to customer relationship management andorder capture solutions, the iPad has incredible potential to leverage existinginvestments in information systems and enterprise applications. Even manypaper-driven processes today, from sales presentations to survey data capture,can be dramatically enhanced through the introduction of the iPad.This book is a guide for how business and IT must collaborate todevelop a mobile strategy to properly take advantage of this transformativetechnology. Readers will also learn about the high-level software architecturaloptions, the importance of design and user experience, application developmenttools and techniques, and best practices for deploying and managing iPads inthe enterprise.iPad in the Enterprise gets you started immediately planning, designing, developing, deploying, and managing iPad apps specifically for the enterprise.

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Java Soa Cookbook Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This book is intended for experienced Java developers and architects who need to know the details of SOA development with the Java programming language and associated technologies. It is not a very good big picture book on SOA. For that I recommend Service Oriented Architecture with Java: Using SOA and web services to build powerful Java applications, which was published in 2008, so it is still current in its approach.
To get the most out of this book the author assumes specifically that you are familiar with Java SE 5 or 6, servlets, JSP Enterprise Edition containers such as Glassfish, Enterprise JavaBeans, as well as JDBC, JNDI, EARs and WARs, and XML. In short, the author assumes that you have been involved in enterprise development using the Java technologies and APIs mentioned. If you have used web services but not recently, this book does help you get your feet back in the water. It is those that are complete novices that will get truly lost.
Parts of the book address strategy, design, and patterns, but largely it is a book that stays at a low level. A really good book on SOA design patterns is SOA Design Patterns (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl). The author also talks about SOA and Ruby, Python, and .NET. However, it is not necessary to have a background in these languages since Java is specifically the language and environment that the author addresses.
Currently, the table of contents is not included in the product description, so I include that next:
Part 1: SOA Fundamentals
Chapter 1. Introduction to SOA
Chapter 2. XML Schema and the SOA Data Model
Chapter 3. Working with XML and Java
Part 2: Web Services
Chapter 4. Getting Started
Chapter 5. Web Services with SAAJ
Chapter 6. Creating Web Service Applications with JAX-WS
Chapter 7. Providing SOAP-Based Web Services
Chapter 8. RESTful Web Services
Part 3: Business Processes
Chapter 9. Service Orchestrations with BPEL
Chapter 10. Advanced Orchestrations with BPEL
Chapter 11. SOA Governance
Part 4: Interoperability and Quality of Service
Chapter 12. Web Service Interoperability
Chapter 13. Quality of Service
Chapter 14. Enterprise Service Bus
I would say that between this book and the other two that I mentioned, you should have a pretty good starting point on SOA/Java reading material.

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Java SOA Cookbook offers practical solutions and advice to programmers charged with implementing a service-oriented architecture (SOA) in their organization. Instead of providing another conceptual, high-level view of SOA, this cookbook shows you how to make SOA work. It's full of Java and XML code you can insert directly into your applications and recipes you can apply right away. The book focuses primarily on the use of free and open source Java Web Services technologies -- including Java SE 6 and Java EE 5 tools -- but you'll find tips for using commercially available tools as well.Java SOA Cookbook will help you:



Construct XML vocabularies and data models appropriate to SOA applications
Build real-world web services using the latest Java standards, including JAX-WS 2.1 and JAX-RS 1.0 for RESTful web services
Integrate applications from popular service providers using SOAP, POX, and Atom
Create service orchestrations with complete coverage of the WS-BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) 2.0 standard
Improve the reliability of SOAP-based services with specifications such as WS-Reliable Messaging
Deal with governance, interoperability, and quality-of-service issues

The recipes in Java SOA Cookbook will equip you with the knowledge you need to approach SOA as an integration challenge, not an obstacle.

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