Service-oriented architecture (SOA) represents the opportunity to achieve broad-scale interoperability, while providing the flexibility required to continually adapt technology to business requirements. No small feat, particularly when one considers the extent and complexity of today's IT environments. As both a technology concept and IT discipline, the challenge inherent in SOAs is maintaining the right architectural approach. If all services in an SOA are treated as interdependent point-to-point interfaces, then the complexity of implementing and maintaining them in this spaghetti-like architecture becomes enormous. The enterprise service bus (ESB) has emerged as one of the first true SOA product offerings, bringing SOA from pattern to production. ESBs provide a framework for building and deploying an eventdriven, enterprise SOA and accommodates the configuration, hosting, and management of integration components as services across the business.

• ESB Integration Patterns
• Reconstructing J2EE - Java Business Integration Meets the Enterprise Service Bus
• Message-Centric Web Services vs RPC-Style Web Services
• The New Integration Architect: You