These days I have been doing a bit of reading on BEPL ( Business Process execution language. ) BPEL plays a vital role in an real SOA deployment.Here are some of the nice tutorial links i found on the web.
1. A Hands-on Introduction to BPEL
2. A Hands-on Introduction to BPEL, Part 2: Advanced BPEL
Both these links are from oracle and involved with oracle process manager. However the BPEL aspect is explained in a very elegant way.
Also you can find some very nice links from apache ODE site
I had the opportunity of reading the book Apache OFBiz Development. Apache OFBiz is a top level project at apache software foundation and has a large code base and an active development community. OFBiz (Open For Business) is a open source enterprise automation software project. It has the capabilities to cater for many business requirements like ERP, CRM , E-Business ect.
Apache OFBiz development book is written in such a manner that even a total new developer to the domain can quickly get started with the software. It begins with the all important aspect of how to obtain the software, how to install and getting started which is absolutely vital.The first chapter contains details on even setting up the eclipse devolvement environment for OFBiz as well. The authors only expect the knowledge of java language since the software is in java.
OFBiz is a software that is built around the popular MVC ( Model View Controller ) architecture. So the book also focuses on each of these aspects thought the book. The first set of chapters focus on explaining the View aspect. For any business application with a front end, the look and feel of the front end, the maintainability and usability of the front end is absolutely vital and the book covers a great deal about it.
From the 2nd to 6 chapter, the book covers creating a webapp with OFBiz, the how to customize it. The book goes in to great deal of detail in explaining the creating a component in OFbiz and then enhancing it systematically. Chapters 3 and four covers screen widgets and Form widgets. It has lots of detail on how to use xml configuration files. Form widgets chapter covers how to create forms , fundamentals of XHTML forms, event handling ect...
Entire chapter 6 has been dedicated to explaining the control servlet ( Controller of MVC). It covers all details you need to know.
Next the book focuses on the Model aspect (Data) of OFBiz. OFbiz has a Declarative Entity Engine ( Database agnostic ). And Chapter 7 and 8 covers all the know how stuff needed for managing the data within OFbiz. It covers Entity Engine concepts, creating and using entities relationship types ... and many more.
Chapter 9 focus on Events. It focus is on Java Events, OFBiz techniques for programing business logic, handling security, .... Chapter 10 covers how to make your business components operate within an SOA model by making services available. It covers in detail "The Service Engine" of the OFbiz software.Also the book covers permissions, security, configurations with SSL, Apache, controlling look and feel, and vital tips and techniques in managing an deploying in a live environment.
What i like about this book is the number of code samples, details explanations, and the coverage of each and every aspect of the software. Being a very large software project , OFBiz has lots of things to cover, and authors does an excellent job in putting together think kind of a comprehensive book. For any developer using OFBiz this is a must have book. It will not only guide you through all the important aspects of OFBiz, but also will serve as a vital reference to look up when ever you need to figure out something.
