InformationWeek

March 8, 1999

ERP Integration

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Vendors addressing ERP integration tend to sell development and deployment environments rather than straight language tools. These integrated development environments are primarily high-end, server-centric products capable of building multitier transaction business systems. Many are application server environments that provide some developmental capabilities.

Most of these products provide load balancing and server failover support within their execution environments, and in this way they overcome the "single point of failure" problem associated with simpler hub-and-spoke architectures. In addition, these environments can support both a data-centric and a messaging-centric approach to ERP integration.

Development and deployment environments often provide automated extraction and transformation services, and virtually all tools provide some type of messaging infrastructure.

Standard Approach
In keeping with the general industry trend of avoiding proprietary solutions whenever possible, most vendors of application development and deployment environments are looking to industry standards such as Corba, Microsoft's Component Object Model, JavaBeans, Enterprise JavaBeans, and the Extensible Markup Language as the basis for their ERP adapters and connectors.

SAP and Vantive adapters for Forté's Application Environment are based on XML--an emerging standard format for data interchange. Similarly, Information Builders' Parlay development and application server environment employs Enterprise JavaBeans to provide ERP integration.

Differentiation
The primary advantages of ERP-enabled development environments over both data- and message-based ERP integration products are their flexibility and range of use. Development environments can be employed to simply integrate core mainframe, client-server, and ERP systems that automate business processes. By definition, development environments support custom development and historically have supported a wide variety of data sources.

These products are also attractive to consultants and independent software vendors that offer integration services to IT departments. As such, they can integrate with these core enterprise systems at both the data and process levels.

Development tools and deployment environments are also central to the development of new classes of information systems based on technologies that give companies a real competitive advantage. For example, Web-ready applications built with new tools and techniques will offer businesses access to untapped markets and new business opportunities. ERP adapters and connectors provide a mechanism by which the next generation of business systems can leverage back-end ERP systems and extend them to Web-commerce applications.

E-commerce systems are the current exemplars of how business can exploit the Net to develop and automate new business processes and create new markets.

E-commerce systems differ radically from the class of tactical Internet applications that preceded them, and are much more similar to strategic mainframe, client-server online transaction processing and ERP systems in terms of complexity, scope, and overall importance to the business.

The development and deployment environments that have been early providers of ERP adapt- ers address the issues of building complex business systems. Using ERP-enabled development and deployment environments, companies can extend enterprise package applications to the Web.

The four criteria to consider when analyzing an integration approach include the particular ERP packages supported, the manner and degree to which ERP integration is supported, adoption of integration standards such as Enterprise JavaBeans, and the availability of third-party support services.

Integration Is Key
The need to integrate packaged enterprise applications with the enterprise is acute. Vendors of ERP integration provide useful solutions for specific problem domains. Vendors of high-end development tools and application servers are extending their products to target the ERP integration market. They are redefining the integration market to include not only point-to-point data and metadata exchange between ERP packages, but the linking of all data sources, object models, and execution architectures--including the Web. This is enterprise integration as opposed to simple application integration.

The result of these efforts will be that IT managers will have many more options for integrating all the technical components of the enterprise, across a broad array of computing platforms, at both the data and the process level.

Dan Kara is the chief technology officer of the Intermedia Group, a research firm in Westboro, Mass. He can be reached at dkara@intmedgrp.com.

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