InformationWeek

August 28, 2000

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A New Approach To Integration

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More on enterprise application integration:

IBM Bolsters Enterprise Integration (7/24/00)

CrossWorlds, Mercator To Expand EAI Offerings (7/3/00)

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Aberdeen Group divides application-integration tool offerings into four categories: extended enterprise processes, data transport, data integration, and process flow. A company may have to use multiple tools to complete the integration task.

In business-to-business integration, process-flow mapping is emerging as the critical capability. What appears as a single business-to-business transaction, for instance, may actually trigger a dozen or more processes, says Simon Yates, an analyst at Forrester Research. For example, a purchase through an online exchange may initiate financing, logistics, inspection, insurance, and clearing processes. Each of these processes will have subprocesses. The finance subprocess may involve even more subprocesses, such as originating a loan, issuing a letter of credit, or opening a credit line. Integrating this requires complex process mapping.

While vendors of conventional enterprise application integration tools have scrambled to enhance or expand their products to support business-to-business integration by adding XML support and reinforcing their messaging, a new generation of business-to-business integration vendors has emerged. These include Extricity Inc. and webMethods. In addition, there are vendors moving into business-to-business integration, such as Mercator and Sterling Software (recently acquired by Computer Associates), which come from the electronic data interchange world, Yates says.

Bourns Inc. in Riverside, Calif., implemented Extricity's Alliance to provide fast integration with independent subcontractors. The large electronic component manufacturer previously relied on electronic data interchange for information exchange with its subcontractors. "But EDI had a problem when we wanted to have richer conversations," says Paul Tearnen, Bourns' director of IT. EDI was fine for replacing paper documents, such as purchase orders or invoices, but it couldn't handle more complex, structured dialogue around a given issue.

"We wouldn't know, for example, if there was a problem until the subcontractor didn't deliver on time," he says. EDI could provide a purchase-order acknowledgement, but there's no EDI structure to deliver status reports.

As a result, the company early on joined RosettaNet, a consortium of manufacturing companies that's setting standards for more information exchange based on XML. With Extricity, Bourns is able to map its systems to the standards defined by RosettaNet or whatever the prevailing standards are.

"Extricity gives us the ability to connect and exchange XML and automatically map the XML into our SAP system," Tearnen says. With Extricity, the company hopes to engage in collaborative functions, such as design or automatic replenishment.

Enron Corp., a Houston energy company, found that Tibco's messaging gives it a foundation for EAI and business-to-business integration. "We have built an E-business infrastructure on Tibco," says John Pavetto, VP of E-commerce. The infrastructure accommodates back-office EAI, involving such applications as SAP and Siebel, and Enron's global business-to-business portal.

For example, "we need to get a transaction from a trusted partner through the portal and into my application," Pavetto says. Tibco provides message brokering, and transforms the message into a form that Enron can use. Wrapped around the message are application logic and business rules. Tibco will split the message into different formats based on the particular business rules, he says.

Even with the new integration tools, EAI and business-to-business integration require the attention of the company's best programmers. The initiatives typically call for scripting and programming, increasingly in Java. Today's tools will get you about 40% of the way, says Dan Sholler, a senior analyst at Meta Group. The tools are quickly improving, he adds, and will eventually handle 80% of the integration job out of the box. However, the need to accommodate a company's unique aspects means no tool will be able to do it all.

WaterDesk must build custom Neon adapters when it has to integrate a customer with unique needs. Enron also has to augment Extricity. "The tools are still at the plumbing level," Tearnen says. "We have to provide the application level." Tool vendors are quickly adding graphical modeling tools to expedite and automate the process of defining business rules. Specifically, companies are looking to extend the Unified Modeling Language, an object modeling language, for business-to-business-process modeling.

Many companies put off EAI in the past, absorbing the inefficiencies and limitations that result from nonintegrated systems. In the new economy, however, business-to-business integration is more important. The inability to integrate with partners and customers may leave a company at a severe competitive disadvantage.