Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide

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Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide

Product Description
What every IT manager and system administrator needs to know about the technology that drives the B2B marketplace
The B2B marketplace is rapidly exploding–fast outpacing business-to-consumer e-commerce and expected to reach more than $7 trillion in sales by 2004. This guidebook equips XML authors, programmers, and managers with the technology know-how they need to create and develop simple yet robust B2B systems from scratch. It provides easy-to-understand explanations on how and why XML and other important technologies such as HTTP and MIME are driving the B2B marketplace. Along with XML and Java code examples, readers will find broad coverage of emerging standards and protocols, including Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), ebXML from OASIS/UN/CEFACT, XML Common Business Language (xCBL), BizTalk, and Commerce XML (cXML).Amazon.com Review
If we ever reach the point where businesses can efficiently and cost-effectively transfer information among themselves, chances are that XML will be the key technology that makes it all work. Building B2B Applications with XML offers an overview of using XML as a data transfer mechanism between organizations. Although this area is still really in its infancy, this book lends good perspective to the benefits of XML and offers a snapshot of the current landscape of standards.

Author Michael Fitzgerald aims the book at both managers looking to grasp the general concept of B2B, and software developers looking for a little more detail about where to start with such an initiative. The first part of the book describes the fundamentals of the XML standard, transport mechanisms, and security techniques that come into play when designing a B2B solution. The XML overview isn’t a comprehensive tutorial, but rather a quick run-through of all the various components of XML, such as DTDs, Schemas, and transformations. The transport section discusses HTTP, FTP, MIME, SMTP, and other standards key to communicating data. The demonstrations are conducted in Java.

The second part of the book will be of greatest value to software developers. It explores some of the key standards currently available in the XML world. The reader gets a look at ebXML, xCBL, cXML, SOAP, and BizTalk. All of these are essential initiatives for an XML developer to keep current on.

The book’s easy-to-read style makes it suitable for non-programmers, but its content is detailed enough to warrant a read by seasoned coders. While it isn’t a panacea for the challenges of XML B2B, it’s a good place to start. –Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

B2B overview
XML document structure
DTDs
XML Schema
CSS
TCP/IP
HTTP
SMTP
MIME
Digital signatures
Public-key infrastructure
S/MIME
XML Signature
IPSec
PGP
SSL
ebXML
xCBL
cXML
SOAP
BizTalk

Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide

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2 Responses to “Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide”

Jeong-hoon Kang Says:
February 13th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
XML,XML,XML everywhere.
Also, there are tons of RE-written w3c XML specs.
but this is different covering all practical subjects with some java codes.

Make sure, if you are a novice at XML, get another introductory book(like inside XML) first.
Rating: 5 / 5
Nickolas Landry Says:
February 13th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
When I got this book I already had quite a few XML books in my bookcase, all from Wiley, Addison Wesley, O’Reilly and yes, even Wrox… :-|
Being an IBM Certified Developer on XML, I know my way around the topic and this book certainly qualifies as a great addition to my collection. With all the numerous XML books out there that keep covering the same material, this book with its excellent content on the more specialized XML standards for B2B certainly is refreshing. So even if you know XML very well, you can learn a lot in this book.

Despite its average size the book covers a lot of topics, and the discussions are still very detailed while being concise and “to the point”. There is little rambling here. The writing style is professional and interesting, and also include those personal insights that I appreciate in computer books. I like books by pros who use the stuff, not just write about it.

If you’re a manager, analyst or some other less-technical IT worker who wants to know a lot more about XML itself as well as its B2B uses, you’ll love it. It is technical and you’ll have to get your hands dirty a little, but you’ll finally be up to speed on XML & B2B and understand what people are discussing around you. Not only will it provide you with the much needed knowledge on XML, Internet transports and security, you’ll get a lot on the B2B angle and help you in identifying which technologies and standards you should consider for your business.

Developers who know XML will have to expect some redundancy early in the book since there is a whole chapter on XML fundamentals. It can serve as a good recap, may cover some of the XML-related standards you might not know so well, but definitely paints a clear picture of how the whole range of XML stuff fits together in “El Photo Grande” (the big picture).

Unless you’re an Internet protocols and transports guru, you’ll learn some very valuable low-level stuff here and be better positioned to understand the impact of your designs. The chapter on security – one of the most critical topics in B2B – is very well explained and is an excellent intro to the various concepts, but you’ll need a dedicated security book to truly achieve the necessary level of expertise that is required in the implementation of a B2B project.

Unfortunately, since the book introduces you to many topics and concepts but obviously cannot dig as deep as we’d always want (unless reading a 14-volume work), I would have expected the author to refer us to external resources and other books and he almost never does. There is also no bibliography so no help there either. With all the new concepts in there, a glossary would have been nice too, although there is a much welcome “Notes” section at the end with various references to terms and concepts found throughout the book. The companion website …does offer references but they’re mainly W3C sources (quite exhaustive though).

The best value of the book comes in part II with coverage on the various frameworks, vocabularies and standards in B2B XML such as ebXML, xCBL, cXML, RosettaNet, SOAP and BizTalk. Little of this appears in other books so you’ll want to buy this one if only for that. You’ll have to do more digging on the one standard you’ll pick when comes the time to use these technologies in real-world scenarios, but at least here you’ll be able to decide which way to go and why, and you’ll be able to start prototyping too.

If you’re an XML novice, the fundamentals chapter is nice but you’ll want at least another XML book to gain any detailed and “hands-on” knowledge on the classic XML standards (XSL, XSLT, DTDs, DOM, SAX, XLink, XPointer, XPath, etc.) Allow me to recommend “Applied XML: A Toolkit for Programmers” and “XML Specification Guide” by Wiley, and “XML in a Nutshell” by O’Reilly as good starting points. Maybe you could even pick an XML book better adapted to your language since the B2B book strictly uses Java.

I don’t mind the Java code throughout the book, even though I’m more of a VB developer. I hate books that provide examples in multiple languages since they waste space and end-up being confusing, and I understand how Java can be the best choice for the widest audience of XML developers. Anyways if you can’t read Java code yet, you’re probably in trouble already.

All in all an excellent book, I highly recommend it. You can expect the high level of quality that is so customary to Wiley books (and which seems to elude Wrox so often). It’s cheaper than other Wiley books but still comparable in price to other publishers. Personally I would have preferred a thicker (even if pricier) book with deeper coverage but here you get a very good return on your money. Enjoy!
Rating: 5 / 5