Rating: 
Summary: Good introduction
Review: This is a good introduction to the field of enterprise architecture. It generally doesn't go into technical detail, so anyone should be able to get something out of it. Also, it is to the point and so mercifully short. The only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars is that the book has six authors and it shows. There is no red thread running through the chapters, even if the chapters themselves are good.
Rating:
Summary: Great review of the field
Review: This is one of the few books available that attempts to make sense of enterprise architecture (as opposed to the software architecture for individual information systems). It sets out to be a guide to the main themes in the field and largely succeeds in this aim.The book provides well written, practical, accessible overviews of a number of topics important to enterprise architecture, including infrastructure architecture, software architecture, service oriented architecture, data architecture, product line architecture and architecture for the presentation tier, as well as a set of extensions to RUP (known as "EUP" - see http://www.enterpriseunifiedprocess.info) and sets of practices to help make architecture and modelling "agile". There's a lot here of value and the book is one that's easy to recommend to those interested in developing into the role of enterprise architect. The limitations of the book are probably inevitable, given its fundamental form (covering a wide range of topics and being written by six authors) but it does have some. Each of the subjects covered is described in a single chapter, leading to a relatively shallow degree of explanation and you're often left with a lot of questions - particularly how to apply this knowledge. Having said this, the text provides plenty of suggestions for further reading to address this problem. The wide range of subjects also leads to a certain degree of fragmentation, and the book could do with a stronger introduction to provide a "roadmap" to its content and to explain why these are the critical subjects to cover. Finally, there is also a certain amount of variation in style and depth between the different subjects, a problem that is probably inevitable where six authors and ten subjects are involved. An example of this is where software product lines are really just introduced (with little guidance as to their application - which is actually quite tricky), while in contrast, the sections on agile modelling and SOA contain a lot of useful advice to guide their use. These relatively minor gripes aside though, this is certainly a book to have on your bookshelf, if you are involved in the development of enterprise system architectures. I'd also echo a previous reviewer's comment that the book is well produced, albeit with a few missing references.
Rating:
Summary: Great review of the field
Review: This is one of the few books available that attempts to make sense of enterprise architecture (as opposed to the software architecture for individual information systems). It sets out to be a guide to the main themes in the field and largely succeeds in this aim. The book provides well written, practical, accessible overviews of a number of topics important to enterprise architecture, including infrastructure architecture, software architecture, service oriented architecture, data architecture, product line architecture and architecture for the presentation tier, as well as a set of extensions to RUP (known as "EUP" - see http://www.enterpriseunifiedprocess.info) and sets of practices to help make architecture and modelling "agile". There's a lot here of value and the book is one that's easy to recommend to those interested in developing into the role of enterprise architect. The limitations of the book are probably inevitable, given its fundamental form (covering a wide range of topics and being written by six authors) but it does have some. Each of the subjects covered is described in a single chapter, leading to a relatively shallow degree of explanation and you're often left with a lot of questions - particularly how to apply this knowledge. Having said this, the text provides plenty of suggestions for further reading to address this problem. The wide range of subjects also leads to a certain degree of fragmentation, and the book could do with a stronger introduction to provide a "roadmap" to its content and to explain why these are the critical subjects to cover. Finally, there is also a certain amount of variation in style and depth between the different subjects, a problem that is probably inevitable where six authors and ten subjects are involved. An example of this is where software product lines are really just introduced (with little guidance as to their application - which is actually quite tricky), while in contrast, the sections on agile modelling and SOA contain a lot of useful advice to guide their use. These relatively minor gripes aside though, this is certainly a book to have on your bookshelf, if you are involved in the development of enterprise system architectures. I'd also echo a previous reviewer's comment that the book is well produced, albeit with a few missing references.
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