Some thoughts about the BPEL 2.0 Oracle SOA Suite 11g from PACKT publishing edition

Hi everyone,

To sum up, the book is pretty well designed.

The ideas of synchronous and asynchronous processes are used, and I really like this approach (this is the one I always use in BPEL and WS trainings).

The entire first part is dedicated to the BPEL language basic concepts.

The next part is more focused on the JDeveloper aspect, and more generally, how to develop with the Oracle tool some BPEL processes (Composite applications).

Then we are going back to some advanced BPEL extention concepts.

After that, there are lots of parts about Oracle SOA suite tools (which I almost never use, apart Oracle BAM).

1. First part

There is a good explaination and lots of details about the BPEL language (2.0 oriented).

Correlations, which is one of the hardest part of BPEL to understand is well explained also.

However, there is not even a word about Custom XPath Function which I really like.

Then I'm a bit disappointed regarding this last point since Custom XPath are really really a good thing.

2. Second part

About JDeveloper, so a bit boaring... but necessary when developping.

Anyway, this is a mandatory part.

Good thing : He talks about Testing SOA composite applications (how to test BPEL process) ! Very good.

3. Third part

Toh ! This guy is talking about Java Embedded ! I cannot believe it.

This is the most awful thing I've ever seen on BPEL ! (and this is only an Oracle BPEL extension).

He should have talked about Custom Xpath (which is equivalent in term of JTA transaction propagation).

He gives an good overview about the Fault Policy Management framework(also called Error Hospital by Oracle employees).

But I think a Java Action example should have been written...

Not even a word about the replay fault, which can be used outside of the Fault Policy Management...

See one of my previous blog post about this. So, a bit disappointed also.

4. Last parts about Oracle SOA tools

I'm not confortable enought with all those products to say anything about those parts.

And to be honest, I did not read those parts.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would say this book is alright if you don't know BPEL already, and if you want to dive inside the BPEL world (starting from BPEL 2.0).

Unfortunatly, there are some key points which are missing (from my point of view).

The other solution is to come to send me an email, and buy a Zenika BPEL training (available on Oracle BPEL and Apache ODE) :)

I travel all around the world for BPEL and ESB trainings, so don't be shimed.

Take care.