Learning BPEL

After having passed the SCDJWS certification i was a bit confused as to what next to learn to gain more mileage with Webservices. For sometime i simply kept idlying my time at the javaranch.com webservices forum trying to answer some questions and keeping in touch and testing the depth of my knowledge on webservices. Well that process still continues but in the meanwhile i got to know about BPEL for WS orchestration and it got me interested. I found only one book which addressed only BPEL and not the whole paraphernalia of webservices which i had already learned/read in the course of getting certified. This was the book Business Process Execution Language for Webservices 2nd Edition by Matjaz Juric et al. Also i found this article from Sun quite informative.

I have today got the book and will update this post with a review of how i find it. Java ranch has a review on this book too and my first impression is - it covers exactly as much as i would want to read on BPEL to get my hands dirty. It covers both theory for BPEL 1.1 and practicals of how to develop using a BPEL engine - Oracle Business Process Manager 10.1.2. Though it also addresses the practical aspects of another BPEL engine from Microsoft - the BizTalk Server 2004 in the chapter 7 (the last chapter). Book starts with an overview of SOA and BPEL and an overview of competitors of BPEL. It also introduces the different WS-* standards which BPEL standard builds on. Then it delves into BPEL theory for the next 2 chapters. Then it covers the practicals of developing using Oracle BPM and JDeveloper 10g + Eclipse 3.1 for the next 2 chapters. Lastly it covers Microsoft BizTalk server 2004. There is an appendix of BPEL 1.1 syntax. Its not a big book (only 350 pages).