As many traditional business programmers need to increase their skill sets to learn web applications, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is described for the programmer experienced in traditional programming languages, but with little experience with Web languages and technologies. Describing SOA in a simple, straightforward manner, this guide explains not only the buzzwords and benefits but also the technologies that encompass SOA, including XML, WSDL, SOAP, XPath, BPEL, SCA, and SDO. Using numerous business examples and illustrations, it gives practical meanings to these abstract ideas, offering a detailed overview of XML namespaces and XML schema and a clear tutorial on Xpath, among many other concepts.