Anura Gurug is an independent technical consultant who specializes in all aspects of contemporary networking, corporate portals, and Web services, particularly if they involve IBM host systems. He has first-hand, in-depth experience in Web-to-host, SNA, Frame Relay, Token Ring switching, and ATM. He was actively involved with the Token Ring switching pioneer, Nashoba Networks, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1996, and the ATM broadband access company, Sonoma Systems, which was acquired by Nortel in 2000.

He was the founder and chairman of the SNA-Capable i net Forum in 1997. He also ran a boat-based, take-out delivery service in New Hampshire called Waiters on Water. In his spare time he has been known to sell restaurant point-of-sales (POS) systems and Wi-Fi solutions. He also teaches graduate and postgraduate computer technology and marketing at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) ”Laconia/Gilford and Portsmouth campuses.

He is the author of Corporate Portals Empowered with XML and Web Services (2002), Integrating TCP/IP i nets with IBM Data Centers (1999), Reengineering IBM Networks (1996), and the best-selling SNA: Theory and Practice (1984). He coedited Communications Systems Management Handbook and Web-to-Host Connectivity (Auerbach Pub.). He also publishes a highly acclaimed 16-page, monthly electronic newsletter called i-BigBlue Professionals Monthly, which deals with most issues related to IBM systems. In addition, he has published over 320 articles. In a career spanning 29 years , he has held senior technical and marketing roles at IBM, ITT, Northern Telecom, Wang, and BBN.

He can be contacted at (603) 455-0901 or <anu@wownh.com>. His Web sites are www.inet-guru.com and www.wownh.com.

Acknowledgments

A book such as this, which strives to present a relatively high-level narrative of a somewhat complex and rapidly evolving sphere of technology, would ill serve its readers unless my views and interpretations were continually and consistently challenged by a motivated and knowledgeable devil s advocate. In this respect I was most fortunate in having the help of Chandra Venkatapathy. Chandra, who also very kindly agreed to write the Foreword to this book, is IBM s Market Manager for Web services “related integration solutions for small and medium businesses. Chandra is an out-and-out Web-services expert who has been actively involved with Web-services technology since early 2001. He was instrumental in developing IBM s Web Services Gateway ”a proxy firewall for using Web services outside of an intranet/extranet.

Chandra, despite a heavy workload at IBM, reviewed and critiqued each chapter as soon as it was written. He pointed out various shortcomings, suggested alternate interpretations, and provided invaluable insights into the technology. He did his level best to keep me honest and accurate. If not for Chandra s efforts, I would have let you down in some areas. Thank you, Chandra. If you have not already read the Foreword, you really should do so in order to gain Chandra s uniquely privileged perspective on Web services, since he is one of IBM s evangelists in this arena. Despite Chandra s gallant efforts, any errors, omissions, and shortfalls you may still discover in this book are, alas, all due to my inadequacies, and I will, as ever, readily take all blame for them. Feel free to e-mail me at <anu@wownh.com> with any of your views and also to regularly check www.xmlweb.org for updates that may rectify omissions or errors.

Stuart McIrvine, IBM s Program Director for IBM s WebSphere Integration solutions, who was the devil s advocate for my previous book, introduced me to Chandra with the recommendation that Chandra would be the ideal person for my needs. As ever, Stuart was correct. Thank you, Stuart. You continue to be a hero. Tod Yampel, Mr. ResQNet, a friend of long standing from my days in Web-to-host and another technocrat of no mean repute (with multiple patents to his credit), did read Chapter 1 with care and assured me that I was on track. Thank you, Tod. I wish you had had the time to look through the rest of the book as well. But c est la vie!

Thanks are also due to a few select individuals from the corporate world for their continued help and support over the years. These include my bro Carlson Colomb, once with Aviva but now a buccaneering Web entrepreneur in Canada; Mark Lillycrop of Arcati; Fiona Hewitt, the incomparable editor of TCP/SNA Update for Xephon; Tim Clark of eG Innovations; Jim O Connor, still at Bus-Tech; Susan Verrecchia of the eponymous Verrecchia Group; Gregory Koss, Bill Koss, and Larry Samberg at Internet Photonics; Xavier Chaillot and Rana Aluraibi of Hummingbird; Adrienne Stevens, Richard Padova, Sandra Sanborn, Karen Muncaster, and Jane Torrey of Southern New Hampshire University; and David Wilson of Open Archive.

It would be remiss if I did not also mention a few special friends , since writing books can be a lonely , introspective task, and one needs the spark of others so as not to get lost. Susanne Weldon Francke (sometimes also my lawyer) and Dr. Gary Francke still keep an eye on me on a regular basis but not as much as they had to in the past now that I am married. Robert Rosenbaum is still related, though, alas, no longer via our goldens. Dony and Marcia Lamontagne have proved to be dear and durable friends, as has John Kimball. I should also add my new mother-in-law, Anna Gay Sellars, for brightening my day, without fail, with her daily stream of e- mails .

My father, Dr. Ananda Gurug, a considerably more prolific and gifted author than his son, has always been a driving influence in my life. As ever, I need to yet again acknowledge my debt to Dr. Tom Westerdale, of Birkbeck College, who labored hard to teach me how to write ”though he should no longer be held responsible for all the bad habits I have succumbed to in the last two decades. Matthew Gordon and Danielle, now young adults, are busy with their lives and having seen their names in so many prior books had little interest in this book. But then there is Devanee, at three, who has made up for that with her verve and cheer . Along with Ulysses, my latest golden retriever, they make sure that there is still plenty of exercise in my life. Then there is Deanna, my wife, who I met shortly after I started working on this book and who has proceeded to enchant my life. Though our whirlwind romance did delay the completion of this book, Deanna s subsequent contributions to this effort were substantial. Thank you all. Without all of you I could not have gotten this done. Cheers!