SUMMARY

In this chapter, we have sought to separate the realistic business capabilities that Web services can deliver today, from the media-hyped capabilities that may be possible in the future. Building upon a perspective of what is hype and what is reality, we detailed a pragmatic three-step approach that can be used as a basis for kick-starting early Web services initiatives. Specifically these three steps are as follows:

1. Preparation for Web services

2. Selection of a pilot project

3. Incremental adoption of Web services

Each step goes beyond a pure technology discussion and examines people,-process, and organizational considerations that must be examined when looking at the implementation of Web services. We have concluded this chapter with a “Where-to-Begin Checklist” that can be used as a quick reference to determine Web services readiness for any organization.

Our hope is that this chapter has been able to answer many of the questions regarding how and where to get started with Web services, and made it possible to identify a set of immediate next steps to execute tomorrow.