How case studies are used

This book weaves approximately 125 examples relating to these case studies throughout all subsequent chapters. This essentially establishes these two organizations as constant real-world reference points. Appendix A concludes this book by ending the storylines of both case studies and exploring the results of the organizations' respective transitions to SOA.

2.1.1. Style characteristics

To more easily identify these examples, we've incorporated a special style element. Any portion of the book (beyond Chapter 2) that discusses our case studies will contain a light gray background. Below is an example.

 

...Initially, there was no concern around this approach, as each application delivered its promised set of features and solved its corresponding business problems. However, because no strategy was used to ensure that XML and Web services were being applied in a standardized manner in support of SOA, there was nothing in place to prevent the resulting design disparity...

 

2.1.2. Relationship to abstract content

For those of you not interested in learning with case studies, you can consider these parts of the book as voluntary reading. None of the abstract descriptions reference or rely on the examples. They are provided only to further assist in communicating the purpose and meaning behind the concepts, technologies, and processes covered. Feel free to bypass shaded areas or perhaps only reference them when you need further elaboration on a given subject.

2.1.3. Code samples

The chapters that comprise Part V: Building SOA (Technology and Design) contain numerous case study examples with markup code. These code samples are used to demonstrate many of the technologies discussed.

This book has been designed so that the supplementary technology tutorials include descriptions of all of the language elements used in the case study code samples. (Note that there are three samples in Chapter 17 that introduce elements from languages that are not explained to demonstrate an aspect of a container element that is explained.)

Now, let's introduce RailCo and TLS.