Enterprise Application Integration, or EAI, is a buzzword that gives a name to the informal process that's been going on for years--the integration of various applications so that they may share information and processes freely. However, with a new, intense focus on EAI from both the vendor and analyst community, the opportunity finally exists to get ahead of the curve on a problem--the integration of applications--that costs the Fortune 1000 over $100 billion per year.
Forester Research estimates that more than 30 percent of IT dollars are currently being spent linking systems together for the common good. Perhaps it's time to consider whether that is too great a cost.
The EAI twist to this old story is not so much about system integration as it is about rethinking the technologies and approaches that would allow EAI to become a short-term and cost-effective reality. EAI also represents a technology-business philosophy that focuses on the business issues at hand and suggests that all systems existing either inside or outside an enterprise should be free to share information and logic in ways inconceivable in the past. EAI is the nexus of technology, method, philosophy, and desire to finally address years of architectural neglect.
Make no mistake--this is an emerging space. Now is the time to ask the tough questions. Now is the time to determine the real value of applying EAI in an enterprise. It's time to question which technologies add value, and to determine which problems they solve. And now is the time to reflect on some of the architectural and design decisions that have been made over the years.
Why EAI?
Because enterprise architectures have been poorly planned for the last two decades and longer, it is time to return distributed enterprises into the realm of sanity. Many organizations built systems based on the "cool" technology of the day, suckered into the hype without properly considering how these systems would somehow, someday, share information. For example, there are organizations with dozens, if not hundreds, of different types of open and proprietary systems, each with its own development, database, networking, and operating system religion. The result is a heterogeneous mass (read, chaos) that only the bravest--or most foolhardy--enterprise architects are willing to sort out without gutting the entire enterprise just to get things back on a sane track.
Again, EAI as such is not new. However, the science behind linking varied types of information systems certainly is. EAI has become a sophisticated set of procedures with newly refined technologies, such as message brokers, that allow users to tie systems together using a common glue. The concept of EAI may not be new, but the power of the tools and technology, as well as the techniques available to solve the EAI problem, sure are. Middleware, for example, once clearly a programmer's toy, is now a business tool that allows enterprises to freely move information between any number of systems at will--in many cases, without having to change the source or the target systems. Cutting-edge technology has created the opportunity to solve a problem that has been becoming more intractable for years.
Enter ERPs
Another factor that is driving enterprises toward the promised land of EAI is the broad acceptance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications as the new IT infrastructure for the post-millennium corporation. Packaged applications, such as those from SAP, PeopleSoft, and Baan, have revolutionized the way integrated information technology systems are built within most enterprises. Rather than creating new systems from scratch, the modern enterprise is able to leverage existing business rules and processes defined by a single, or several, vendors.
Companies such as SAP have become multibillion dollar entities thanks to the wide acceptance of ERP applications in larger enterprises. What's more, interest in packaged applications has increased in general, with sales automation packages, customer care packages, and vertical market-oriented packages making headlines in the trade publications.
As much as ERP applications can help the integration solution, however, they can also hurt. Organizations are discovering that ERP applications are difficult to install and configure and that, too often, once they are up and running, they turn out not to be all that they were cracked up to be. There is the "little problem" of extracting information from these beasts, information that may be vital to other information systems within the enterprise. For example, if SAP replaces five systems within an enterprise and those five systems supply information to any number of other systems that may also be in place, then the SAP systems must also communicate with these other systems in the enterprise. Making this happen demands an incredible degree of coordination, programming, and testing.
Although coordinating these systems may seem like a minor problem to those who have linked custom systems, it is important to remember that a packaged application typically does not allow for any modification to its source that would enable it to pump information out of a common middleware pipe. This requires interfaces that the ERP application vendor provides. While it would seem like an easy stretch to expect the vendor to have solid and easy-to-use interfaces already in place, the reality is much different. In fact, the major ERP application vendors are beginning to create these interfaces within their products. For the time being, the interfaces are immature and difficult to use. This immaturity represents another aspect of EAI and its real value within many enterprises. EAI is able to link many disparate systems--including ERP applications. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the growing interest in ERP could very well be driving the interest in EAI as well.
Why Write a Book on EAI?
If EAI has been around for a while in everything but name, why write a book on it now? As we've already suggested, the need for EAI is a result of many years of building distributed computing systems with poor architectural planning. The systems using traditional techniques and technology simply cannot communicate with one another without changing a significant portion of the application. In other words, a logical approach is necessary in order to integrate existing enterprise applications, as well as to address the new breed of technology. This book is designed to provide the average computer-literate person with enough information to determine if his or her enterprise needs, or would benefit from, EAI--and, if so, how to approach enterprise information planning requirements using the concepts of EAI.
We will present approaches to implementing EAI within typical enterprises, or between two or more enterprises, using the supply chain integration scenarios. We will also discuss the enabling technologies of EAI, technologies such as middleware, system management layers, standards (such as XML), and application development tools that allow applications and databases to share information with one another. Interfaces into complex systems such as SAP and PeopleSoft will not be left out of the mix. We'll also take a look at the future of EAI technology and discuss how you can prepare for it now.
Ultimately, this book is designed to save you money. Because the lack of proper EAI means that many existing information systems cannot coordinate or share information--resulting in a tremendous loss of revenue--then the addition of EAI within most enterprises has the potential of saving that revenue. Much of those savings come either with the automation of processes that are currently being completed through mechanical mechanisms or through viewing all enterprise systems as a single virtual system and thus having access to all relevant data for decision support.
Of course, any number of other types of savings may be derived from EAI; they vary case by case, enterprise by enterprise. In most situations, the value of EAI is apparent.
In addition to the benefit of application integration within the enterprise, a tremendous benefit is also derived from sharing information with applications that exist outside of the enterprise. eBusiness integration is a mechanism by which information systems are connected with information systems that are owned and maintained by a trading partner. The result is the ability to share information, such as order inventory and sales data. Sharing such information speeds up all aspects of business, including production, sales, order processing, and invoice processing. Increased efficiency in any and all of these areas results in increased profitability.
eBusiness is the next frontier of EAI. Analysts have already begun to double the estimates for business-to-business electronic commerce.
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