If you carefully read and assimilate the information contained in this book you will have a clear path laid out for moving from older architectures that use EDI, point-to-point integration and other partial integration schemes to a true B2B architecture that is glued together by an encompassing middleware layer and driven by business events.
Here are some of the key areas of the book that made a deep impression on me: the clear definition of B2B application integration and what it entails, a wide survey of methods based on their orientation (data, interface, method, portal and process), and the balanced discussion of both middleware and integration standards.
Strengths and weaknesses of the oriented methods described in this book are particularly invaluable because the author shows the choices and trade-offs of each choice as an integration strategy. He gave the same comprehensive treatment to middleware strategies. I especially liked the discussion of integration standards because until I read this book I had the impression that XML was *the* way to extract data from databases, transform it into a common format and promote a standard for communicating among trading partners. Mr. Linthicum discusses the strengths of XML, but wisely warns against trying to make it do everything. Sort of like the adage that when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
The thrust of this book is transforming existing systems into an integrated application infrastructure that will fully support the notion of awareness of business events across all applications. This is a daunting task for architects and integrators who do not have a clean slate with which to design a ground-up architecture. The author addressed the fact that we have to live with that in which we have made heavy investments and proceed from there. This is done in the appendices that show how to integrate SAP R/3 and PeopleSoft into a cohesive B2B architecture. These examples are excellent choices with which to illustrate how it's done because they are realistic examples as opposed to contrived examples of "ideal" situations that other books show.
This book is for architects and IT technical strategists, and for those of us who have technical backgrounds and need to fully understand the technologies and imperatives that are springing up around us. Mr. Linthicum is an engaging writer who packs an incredible amount of information and wisdom into this 408 page book. It easily earns 5 stars and my highest recommendation.
However, the value of this book is not the middleware discussion, but the overview of application integration and its use as a mechanism to move information, in real-time, within and between businesses. The author covers the types of application integration for B2B, enabling technology, approaches, use cases, patterns, and emerging standards including XSLT and RosettaNet. I really liked the discussion of supply chain integration and how it relates to B2B application integration.
It's a winner. I'll be going back to this book time after time. My copy already appears a bit raged out.