Service Contracting, Second Edition , takes you through every phase of service contracting from start to finish. This new edition addresses the need for more flexible contracting processes, such as negotiated approaches and hybrid procedures; the growing trend toward contracting with a wider array of service providers; the challenges of network service contracting; and the impact of technological developments. This is a must-have guide for all local government managers who currently are engaged in service contracting or who are considering service contracting as an alternative. As the culmination of expert advice and lessons learned, this indispensable reference will help you avoid the pitfalls that can derail the process, and hands you the tools you need for success.
This second edition of Contracting for Services in State and Local Government Agencies provides state-of-the-art tools for best practice in the procurement of services at state and local levels, from initial stages through to completion. Including lively case studies and research conducted with state and local agencies across the United States, this book provides management advice and tips on compliance to reduce costs, select the best-qualified contractors, manage contractors’ performance, and prevent corruption and waste. Utilizing the results of new research in all fifty states, author William Sims Curry offers updated best-practice documents, methodologies, and templates including: a Request for Proposal (RFP), a scorecard for proposals to select the best-qualified contractor, a toolkit for meeting socioeconomic contracting goals without compromising price, quality, or on-time delivery, and a Model Services Contract (MSC). Special consideration is given to obtaining services and products in states of emergency. Several additional resources for practitioners are available online, including sample contracts and a straightforward, inexpensive tool for tracking contractors’ progress and cost management. The roadmap and templates contained in this book and available online to readers will prove essential to state and local government agency contracting professionals and other officials and employees called upon to participate in the drafting of solicitations, writing sole source justifications, writing scopes of work, serving on advance contract planning and source selection teams, recommending award of contracts, or assisting in the management of those contracts.
The Ultimate Guide for Designing and Governing Web Service Contracts For Web services to succeed as part of SOA, they require balanced, effective technical contracts that enable services to be evolved and repeatedly reused for years to come. Now, a team of industry experts presents the first end-to-end guide to designing and governing Web service contracts. Writing for developers, architects, governance specialists, and other IT professionals, the authors cover the following areas: Understanding Web Service Contract Technologies Initial chapters and ongoing supplementary content help even the most inexperienced professional get up to speed on how all of the different technologies and design considerations relate to the creation of Web service contracts. For example, a visual anatomy of a Web service contract documented from logical and physical perspectives is provided, along with a chapter dedicated to describing namespaces in plain English. The book is further equipped with numerous case study examples and many illustrations. Fundamental and Advanced WSDL Tutorial coverage of WSDL 1.1 and 2.0 and detailed descriptions of their differences is followed by numerous advanced WSDL topics and design techniques, including extreme loose coupling, modularization options, use of extensibility elements, asynchrony, message dispatch, service instance identification, non-SOAP HTTP binding, and WS-BPEL extensions. Also explained is how WSDL definitions are shaped by key SOA design patterns. Fundamental and Advanced XML Schema XML Schema basics are covered within the context of Web services and SOA, after which advanced XML Schema chapters delve into a variety of specialized message design considerations and techniques, including the use of wildcards, reusability of schemas and schema fragments, type inheritance and composition, CRUD-style message design, and combining industry and custom schemas. Fundamental and Advanced WS-Policy Topics, such as Policy Expression Structure, Composite Policies, Operator Composition Rules, and Policy Attachment establish a foundation upon which more advanced topics, such as policy reusability and centralization, nested, parameterized, and ignorable assertions are covered, along with an exploration of creating concurrent policy-enabled contracts and designing custom policy assertions and vocabularies. Fundamental Message Design with SOAP A broad range of message design-related topics are covered, including SOAP message structures, SOAP nodes and roles, SOAP faults, designing custom SOAP headers and working with industry-standard SOAP headers. Advanced Message Design with WS-Addressing The art of message design is taken to a new level with in-depth descriptions of WS-Addressing endpoint references (EPRs) and MAP headers and an exploration of how they are applied via SOA design patterns. Also covered are WSDL binding considerations, related MEP rules, WS-Addressing policy assertions, and detailed coverage of how WS-Addressing relates to SOAP Action values. Advanced Message Design with MTOM, and SwA Developing SOAP messages capable of transporting large documents or binary content is explored with a documentation of the MTOM packaging and serialization framework (including MTOM-related policy assertions), together with the SOAP with Attachments (SwA) standard and the related WS-I Attachments Profile. Versioning Techniques and Strategies Fundamental versioning theory starts off a series of chapters that dive into a variety of versioning techniques based on proven SOA design patterns including backward and forward compatibility, version identification strategies, service termination, policy versioning, validation by projection, concurrency control, partial understanding, and versioning with and without wildcards. Web Service Contracts and SOA The constant focus of this book is on the design and versioning of Web service contracts in support of SOA and service-orientation. Relevant SOA design principles and design patterns are periodically discussed to demonstrate how specific Web service technologies can be applied and further optimized. Furthermore, several of the advanced chapters provide expert techniques for designing Web service contracts while taking SOA governance considerations into account. About the Web Sites www.soabooks.com supplements this book with a variety of resources, including a diagram symbol legend, glossary, supplementary articles, and source code available for download. www.soaspecs.com provides further support by establishing a descriptive portal to XML and Web services specifications referenced in all of Erl's Service-Oriented Architecture books. Foreword Preface Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Case Study Background Part I: Fundamental Service Contract Design Chapter 3: SOA Fundamentals and Web Service Contracts Chapter 4: Anatomy of a Web Service Contract Chapter 5: A Plain English Guide to Namespaces Chapter 6: Fundamental XML Schema: Types and Message Structure Basics Chapter 7: Fundamental WSDL Part I: Abstract Description Design Chapter 8: Fundamental WSDL Part II: Concrete Description Design Chapter 9: Fundamental WSDL 2.0: New Features, and Design Options Chapter 10: Fundamental WS-Policy: Expression, Assertion, and Attachment Chapter 11: Fundamental Message Design: SOAP Envelope Structure, and Header Block Processing Part II: Advanced Service Contract Design Chapter 12: Advanced XML Schema Part I: Message Flexibility, and Type Inheritance and Composition Chapter 13: Advanced XML Schema Part II: Reusability, Derived Types, and Relational Design Chapter 14: Advanced WSDL Part I: Modularization, Extensibility, MEPs, and Asynchrony Chapter 15: Advanced WSDL Part II: Message Dispatch, Service Instance Identification, and Non-SOAP HTTP Binding Chapter 16: Advanced WS-Policy Part I: Policy Centralization and Nested, Parameterized, and Ignorable Assertions Chapter 17: Advanced WS-Policy Part II: Custom Policy Assertion Design, Runtime Representation, and Compatibility Chapter 18: Advanced Message Design Part I: WS-Addressing Vocabularies Chapter 19: Advanced Message Design Part II: WS-Addressing Rules and Design Techniques Part III: Service Contract Versioning Chapter 20: Versioning Fundamentals Chapter 21: Versioning WSDL Definitions Chapter 22: Versioning Message Schemas Chapter 23: Advanced Versioning Part IV: Appendices Appendix A: Case Study Conclusion Appendix B: A Comparison of Web Services and REST Services Appendix C: How Technology Standards are Developed Appendix D: Alphabetical Pseudo Schema Reference Appendix E: SOA Design Patterns Related to This Book
The privatization of defence assets and the outsourcing of military services from the armed forces to the private sector is an increasing trend. This book approaches the issue of military privatization by linking it to the transformation of the defence industries since the early 1990s, and shows the extent to which many military functions and activities, ranging from military research to military consulting/training to operational support services, have already been outsourced in the US and in Europe. This detailed study provides new and updated information on the ongoing privatization of the defence sector and offers an original theoretical explanation as to why the most modern armed forces throughout the world have come increasingly to rely on private companies for nearly everything they do. Contributing to a better understanding of military privatization and its close connection to technological change, the book explains the complexity of the whole phenomenon and discusses its implications for national and international security.
