Section 10

Enterprise Application Integration

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Describe necessity and characteristics of Enterprise Application Integration(EAI)

2. Define EAI and its aim, benefit and challenges

3. List principles for Enterprise Integration

4. Describe the advantages of E-Collaboration scenarios, IS Integration and E-Collaboration platforms

Agenda

B. E-Collaboration scenarios

C. IS Integration

A. Introduction

D. E-Collaboration platforms

Web-based services for business customers

Motives

• Cost strategy: equal/increased service level for business customers at lower cost

• Transferring administrative/functional services on a medium/channel with a lower cost level

• Improving customer relations by providing web services

5

OS 390

Solaris

Oracle

SAPC++

Windows2000

Windows NT

A Sample of Complicated Application View

NaturalApps

SQLServer

VBApps

Pivotal

MQSeries

CICS

SQLServer

JavaAppsIIS

HTML

EDITrns

The Enterprise

EDIHL7XML

SOAP…..

RPC

MOM

FTP

CORBA

…...

COM

HTTP

Clients

Partners Partners

Suppliers

Clients

DB2

VSAM

CobolApps

Adabas

Is web the only way to integrated?

Web-based services for business customers

But• Impact of e-business solutions on

customer satisfaction?

• Costs of implementing and maintaining an e-business solution?

• Customer needs, demands and requirements?

Agenda

C. IS Integration

A. Introduction

B. E-Collaboration scenarios

D. E-Collaboration Platforms

Phase

RoleInformation Negotiation Fulfillment After Sales

User

• Online training• FAQ (Asus)• Download of

manuals etc. (Asus)

Administrator

• Interactive data sheet (General Plastics)

• Simulation (Gelon Net (Wapalizer))

• Remote monitoring (Dell)

• Online support (Dell)

Buyer/Purchaser

• Product configuration (Cisco)

• Business history • Electronic brochures

(Toshiba)• Case studies

(Toshiba)• Product

presentation (Grundig)

• Service agreements/contracts (Volkswagen)

• Online calculator for financial services (Volkswagen)

• Online ordering (Dell)

• Tracking, Tracing (Dell, German Parcel)

• Business history (Dell)

• Non-technical service (Dell)

• Inventory data (Dell)

FAQ (Asus)

Manual Download (Asus)

Agenda

B. E-Collaboration scenarios

A. Introduction

D. E-Collaboration Platforms

C. IS Integration

Enterprise Application Integration

• Enterprise Application Integration– Definition: The process of integrating

multiple applications that were independently developed, may use incompatible technology, and remain independently managed.

– By this definition, EAI would include:• Business Process Integration• Enterprise Information Integration

Guiding Principles for Enterprise Integration

1. Clear IT Strategy mapped to Business Strategy

2. Mapping of corporate process and data models

3. Plan ahead for EI - investment vs. cost justification

4. Formulate an EI architecture based on integration characteristics

5. Establish clear lines of ownership and accountability

6. Evaluate vendors on commercials, stability, references, strategy

7. Evaluate technologies - scalability, flexibility, customization, standards

8. Invest in the right skills - Solution & Integration Architects

9. Pilot the desired solution, but in a real environment

10. Ensure tools and processes in place for end-to-end service mgmt.

Enterprise Integration Taxonomy

Common Layers of EAI Solutions

Business Intelligence

Business ProcessManagement

Messaging

Adapters

Provides real-time and historical data on performanceof processes and assists in making decisions.

Manages and tracks business transactions that mightspan multiple systems and last minutes to days.

Ensures the reliability of data delivery across the Enterprise or between systems.

Provides “open” connectivity into data sources whileallowing filtering and transformations of data.

A sample of Integration MethodologyDEFINE

Bu

sin

es

s A

na

lys

tQ

ua

lity

Ma

na

ge

r

BusinessProcessAnalysis

Tech ReqDocument

SystemTest Cases

SoftwareQA Plan

Req WTReport

Go

ve

rna

nc

e FDRReport

DESIGN

FDRReport

LogicalDesign

LogicalDesign WT

Report

SimulationDocument

IntegrationTest Cases

Architect.Document

Arc

hit

ec

t /

De

sig

ne

r

BUILD

De

ve

lop

er

IntegrationWT Report

Unit TestResults

SystemTest Result

IntegrationTest

Results

IntegrationDesign

CodeReviews

ErrorHandling

Guide

Unit TestCases

SourceCode

FDRReport

CTQSignoff

Repository Repository Repository

DEPLOY

FDRReport

LessonsLearned

Repository

TBD

Difficulty of EAI

In 2003, 70% of EAI projects turned out to fail Trotta,

Gian(2003)

-Failure reason1.Constant change2.Shortage of EAI experts3.Competing standards4.EAI is a tool paradigm5.Building interfaces is an art6.Loss of detail7.Accountability8.Lack of centralized co-ordination of EAI work.

Toivanen, Antti (2013)

IS Integration Approaches

Motivation

• Technical considerations for web services– Service scenarios (services, business processes)– Process model (heuristic)

• Extending EAI concept into an inter-organizational direction– EAI provides different levels of integration (from

loose coupling to very tight integration)– EAI is a concept, I.e. independent of programming

languages, technical infrastructures etc.

Enterprise Application Integration

Aim

Integrate existing - both intra- and inter-organizational - applicationsusing a common middleware rather than recreate the same business processes and data repositories over and over again.

(Averagely, The Fortune 1000 firms are managing around 15-100 major software applications.)

Enterprise Application Integration

Reasons• Saving development costs• Retaining existing value of legacy applications (but “ancient”

technology)• Increasing need for integration by popularity of packaged applications

such as SAP R/3• Need for a comprehensive integration system rather than creating

interfaces and integration points between every application and data source

Enterprise Application Integration

Benefit• Reuse of integration objects• Modeling business information corresponds

directly to business model• End-user / SME driven changes• Multiple presentations for single piece of

information• Lower cost of integration

– Initial– Maintenance

Spaghetti integration

Source: [Linthicum 1999, 9]

The way to EAI

Source: [Pinkston 2001, 49]

Levels of EAI

Source: [Linthicum 1999, 19]

EAI vision

Source: [Linthicum 1999, 10]

Business ApplicationBusiness Application

Typical Architecture of EAI

Database DatabaseFunction Function

DataIntegration

BrokerAdapter Adapter

WebServicesBroker

Adapter Adapter

SOAP

XML

Transformer

UDDI

Implementation of Inter-EAI

• User Interface Level– HTML Frames– Content syndication

• Method Level– Web Services

• Application Interface Level– Middleware (e.g. CORBA)– Jave RMI– SAP R/3 business objects

• Data Level– EDI standards (e.g. EDIFACT)

– XML standards (e.g. BMEcat, openTrans)

Web Services

Source: [Linthicum 1999, 19]

XML Web Services

Source: www.microsoft.com

Web Services

Benefits• Loose application coupling• Independent application evolution• All vendors are pushing for web services• (Some) interoperability• Standardization of integration technologies• Convenience APIs and tools• Enable ASP (Application Service Providing)

The Web Service ArchitectureApplication services

Applicationservice

Applicationservice

Applicationservice

Applicationservice

Service grid

Standards and protocols

Software standards• WSDL• UDDI• XML

Communication protocols• SOAP• HTTP• TCP/IP

Shared utilitiesSecurity, auditing and assessment of third-party performance, billing and payment

Service management utilitiesProvisioning, monitoring, ensuring quality ofservice, synchronization, conflict resolution

Resource knowledge management utilitiesDirectories, brokers, registries, repositories,data transformation

Transport management utilitiesMessage, queuing, filtering, metering, monitoring, routing, resource orchestration

Web

ser

vice

s

Source: [Hagel/Brown 2001]

Agenda

B. E-Collaboration scenarios

C. IS Integration

A. Introduction

D. E-Collaboration Platforms

E-Collaboration Platforms

• Platform (technical infrastructure) for offering web services

• Possible platform concepts– Corporate portal– Co-operation platform– Electronic marketplace– Application Service Providing

• Selection decision is affected by– Standardization issues– “Richness” of service portfolio– Customer acceptance

Corporate portal

• Internet portal– Relationship: One-to-some/one-to-many– Low/moderate investments on customer side (Web

browser)– Offering tailored (proprietary) services– Low standardization demands

– One front-end for whole service portfolio– Requirements analysis/implementation according

to Process Portal Methodology– Most firms (Dell, Cisco, etc.) providing their web

services on a corporate portal

Co-operation platform

• Co-operation platform– (Open) platform hosted by Siemens ICN, a third-party or a

consortium– Relationship: Some-to-some/some-to-many– Low/moderate investments on customer side (Web browser)– Offering (more) generic web services– Standardization is more important

• Various business models possible• Negotiations between platform providers neccessary• Examples: Covisint, … Conflict resolution (e.g. negotiation of standards)? Reduced service portfolio Customer acceptance should be higher

Future and Trend of EAI

• Evolving from data-level integration into business process automation.

• Changing from focusing on integrating enterprise applications to integration of heterogeneous platforms.

• Providing Infrastructure, allows for futuristic conversion for total integration.

• Shorten the time lag between the introduction of new products and services through integration of various platforms with business applications.

• Going to cloud

References

• Special thanks to1)Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftinformatik undInterorganisationssysteme (IOS)Prof. Dr. Stefan KleinUniversität MünsterInstitut für Wirtschaftsinformatik

2) http://www.integrationconsortium.org