Book excerpt: Get an inside look at how successful businesses build their e-business architectures. In this book, four IBM e-business experts capture years of experience into easy-to-follow guidelines. Deliberately focusing on Business patterns, Integration patterns, and Application patterns, the authors share with you proven architectural patterns that can help get you up and running quickly, while at the same time reducing your risks. Because today's economy demands that e-business initiatives emphasize profitability and return on investment, the authors also offer guidance on methods to minimize cost, yet ensure quality. Many e-business applications and initiatives fail because of the lack of a comprehensive look at e-business architectures. For example, the recent crashes of many e-business applications costing millions of dollars could have been avoided if all aspects of operational issues had been addressed properly. This book offers a blueprint for avoiding such mistakes and for achieving success in the new digital economy. It also includes case studies, examples, references, and pointers to other materials at the IBM Web site www.ibm.com/framework/patterns.