In a galaxy far, far away, I learned the essentials of DCE from David Chappell. I was fortunate to attend a multi-day training session with him. I still remember his style of breaking down complexity and focusing on the fundamentals. I consider all his writings, whitepapers and blog entries essential reading - he continues to inspire me.

So, trying to figure out what's in the box with .NET 3.5 around service oriented development? Try some essentials from David Chappell (I really like the diversity paper WCF=WS-*+REST):

WCF, WF and .NET 3.5 Whitepapers by David Chappell 

"Collection of whitepapers authored by David Chappell on .NET Framework 3.5. This includes an introduction to Windows Communication Foundation, an introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation and an overall introduction to .NET Framework 3.5. There's also a paper describing the diverse array of communications protocols and transports supported by WCF."

Channel9 video featuring David Chappell:

Service Oriented Architecture, Software as a Service, Software + Services, Enterprise Service Bus, Internet Service Bus, BizTalk Services: What's in a name?
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=357112