Building and Managing Enterprise-Wide Portals (J. Polgar et al.; 2005) [Book review]

This book discusses the technology behind portals and grid networks, describes grid technology's evolution, and helps readers make managerial decisions. It has 18 chapters and is divided into four sections. "The Toolset," consisting of three chapters, gives readers basic knowledge necessary to read the rest of the sections. In Section II, entitled "Web Services as Shared Resources," the authors describe web services in terms of a multi-tier architecture and discuss implementation. Section III, "Putting Portals on the Web," associates portals with web services, and thoroughly describes portals, including historical background, development framework, application platforms, maintenance, and management. The final section, "Grids as Virtual Organizations," covers grid goals, grid networks and applications, and web services as grid platforms. The book could be more reader-friendly by making sure all acronyms are escorted by their full names the first time they appear and providing more explanation of new ideas and concepts. Despite the slight flaws, the book is an excellent read and recommended for project managers, web architects, and IT students.