Cutlip and Medicke have written an excellent book for solution architects and project managers. This is the best kind of handbook: cohesive, coherent, and comprehensive.

All ten chapters present interesting information about technology, architecture, and solutions. Although the book speaks for and about the integration of DB2-based systems, there is a lot of coverage of general technology for those working with other databases.

Chapters like “Web Application Server,” “Solutions Development,” “Business Integration and Integration,” and “E-Commerce” present important information technology concepts and decisions. The pragmatic approach of the book is highly commendable. While solutions for the business community are the focus of the text, the broader solution technologies will be useful to developers and architects as well. The implementation of new concepts like Web services is presented in an extremely matter-of-fact manner. This will help boost the adoption of such technology for business integration.

DB2’s internal components (like the DB2 Extensible Markup Language (XML) extender) and external components (such as WORF) are described perfectly; their strengths are enhanced by DB2, and by the related core technologies. The authors’ coverage is comprehensive.

Chapter 2 highlights the integration of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and data repositories. Products like WebSphere and WebLogic are introduced. In chapter 3, the integration of data, applications, and processes is presented, along with solutions for distributed environments. Chapter 4 covers business process integration (BPI) quite effectively, presenting some basic concepts without any ambiguity. The coupling of architectures, information integration, and brokering products is explained in this chapter. In chapter 5, customer relationship management (CRM) and process flow are discussed. The sample code segments will help any serious implementer.

Dynamic business phases are well presented in chapter 6. Also covered in this chapter are issues in application-to-application (A2A), business-to-business (B2B), and business-to-consumer (B2C) technologies. The solution phases are quite logical and representative of the relevant architecture.

Pervasive computing, along with the role of DB2 in pervasive computing environments, is the subject of chapter 7. The authors focus on the integration of currently available, formidable database technologies for real-world solutions. The DB2 products that are appropriate for pervasive computing hardware are DB2 Everyplace and DB2 Spatial Extender. The interplay between machines is discussed thoroughly. This chapter also talks about future enhancements to pervasive computing, and supporting DB2 tools.

DB2’s support in the areas of data mining, e-commerce, and business intelligence is the focus of chapters 8, 9, and 10. Structured development and tiered architecture are the greatest challenges, and they are described very well in these chapters.

The presentation of solutions, technologies, and environments in this book will be a good foundation for those who may not currently be working with DB2 or its products. In this sense, the book stands apart, and I would like to congratulate the authors.