Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)To do justice in reviewing this book, I should depict every single pattern and give you multiple examples on how it would apply to your job as a Project Manager, Software Architect, Technical Lead or a Developer. That would be a 500-page book all by itself. In short, this is one great book. The first book to actually take a complex and ever growing topic such as MOM, Message Oriented Middleware, and give you its benefits and the best practices/patterns all in one book.
The author starts by giving the reader the top reasons why messaging should be chosen for the next project:
1)Remote communication
2)Platform/Language Integration
3)Asynchronous communication
4)Variable timing
5)Throttling
6)Reliable Communication
7)Disconnected operation
8)Mediation
9)Thread Management
The author goes into detail on each of these reasons. These reasons would convince any software architect, but the author goes even further than that and reiterates the benefits of each of these reasons and elaborates on them thru out the book.
Chapter 3 of the book starts by breaking up a messaging system into its main components and briefly explaining each one:
1)Message Channel
2)Message
3)Pipes and Filers
4)Message Router
5)Message Translator
6)Message Endpoint
Each of these high level topics is then broken down and various patterns are shown for each section. Just like the GoF book, the reader can simply go the desired section and read the patterns that are associated with that "subsystem"
Each section is then followed by a full-blown example, which to me is priceless. The examples are shown using the most popular middleware vendors such as TIBCO, IBM, Microsoft, Web Methods, SeeBeyond and a couple JMS vendors. The examples show the similarities and differences in implementation but clearly show how EACH pattern that was just covered in the previous section applies to the example.
Having worked with many of the MOM vendors covered in this book, Chapter 7, Message Routing, is my favorite chapter. The author breaks down this topic into 14 different patterns:
i)Pipes and Filers
ii)Message Router
iii)Content-Based router
iv)Message Filter
v)Dynamic Router
vi)Recipient List
vii)Splitter
viii)Aggregator
ix)Resequencer
x)Composed Message Processor
xi)Scatter-Gather
xii)Routing Slip
xiii)Process Manager
xiv)Message Broker
The chances are, not many of us need to write a MOM due to the fact that there are many vendors out there that are doing that already! But one could certainly use this section for education purposes, and/or use it a checklist of "nice-to-haves" when shopping around for a MOM vendor. By reading the book, you can figure out what "features" apply to you, your application and your enterprise, and take that list and see which vendor has implemented that feature.
In summary, Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf have done a fantastic job depicting a very complex topic. I have made a place for this book right next to the original GoF Design Patterns book.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions
*Would you like to use a consistent visual notation for drawing integration solutions? Look inside the front cover. *Do you want to harness the power of asynchronous systems without getting caught in the pitfalls? See "Thinking Asynchronously" in the Introduction. *Do you want to know which style of application integration is best for your purposes? See Chapter 2, Integration Styles. *Do you want to learn techniques for processing messages concurrently? See Chapter 10, Competing Consumers and Message Dispatcher. *Do you want to learn how you can track asynchronous messages as they flow across distributed systems? See Chapter 11, Message History and Message Store. *Do you want to understand how a system designed using integration patterns can be implemented using Java Web services, .NET message queuing, and a TIBCO-based publish-subscribe architecture? See Chapter 9, Interlude: Composed Messaging.Utilizing years of practical experience, seasoned experts Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf show how asynchronous messaging has proven to be the best strategy for enterprise integration success.However, building and deploying messaging solutions presents a number of problems for developers.Enterprise Integration Patterns provides an invaluable catalog of sixty-five patterns, with real-world solutions that demonstrate the formidable of messaging and help you to design effective messaging solutions for your enterprise.The authors also include examples covering a variety of different integration technologies, such as JMS, MSMQ, TIBCO ActiveEnterprise, Microsoft BizTalk, SOAP, and XSL. A case study describing a bond trading system illustrates the patterns in practice, and the book offers a look at emerging standards, as well as insights into what the future of enterprise integration might hold.This book provides a consistent vocabulary and visual notation framework to describe large-scale integration solutions across many technologies. It also explores in detail the advantages and limitations of asynchronous messaging architectures.The authors present practical advice on designing code that connects an application to a messaging system, and provide extensive information to help you determine when to send a message, how to route it to the proper destination, and how to monitor the health of a messaging system.If you want to know how to manage, monitor, and maintain a messaging system once it is in use, get this book. 0321200683B09122003
