InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
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March 26, 2001 |
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EAI Users Go With The Flow
Enterprise application integration is more strategic than ever as companies try to bring disparate systems into a common E-business framework. Linking front- and back-office systems can reduce the pain of implementing new business processes.
By Eric Sanchez and Joe Fenner
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nterprise application integration isn't a term likely to make businesspeople sit up and take notice. But IT people know just how strategic and necessary EAI technologies can be in delivering on E-business strategies. Enterprise application integration is a godsend for groups charged with evolving and scaling their technology infrastructures and bringing disparate systems together.
While businesspeople may not care about the nuts and bolts of enterprise integration, they certainly should pay attention to EAI's strategic value. Enterprise application integration reduces the pain, time, and cost of implementing new business processes through the linking of back-and front-office systems. For example, a catalog and order-capture system running on BroadVision Inc.'s E-commerce platform might need to collaborate with an SAP R/3 inventory system and a Siebel Systems sales application. The upshot: By pulling such diverse systems together, enterprise integration technology lets companies leverage their existing systems and provide value to customers and employees.
There are plenty of products to choose from in the application integration space, including offerings from Tibco, Vitria, and webMethods. Doculabs is conducting a comparative evaluation of many of the leading EAI products on the market today (see sidebar). But for many companies evaluating enterprise integration, the challenge lies in understanding exactly what EAI can and can't do, and learning when to use EAI and when to use other technologies or middleware components.
Enterprise application integration technologies, often called EAI servers or integration servers, typically address one major technical hurdle: simplifying the integration of disparate systems within an organization so these systems can interoperate.
The challenge of interoperability exists in nearly every company. With the Web, companies are exposing back-end systems through new E-business applications. Such apps may require the integration of multiple back-end systems, such as accounting applications, content repositories, and inventory and fulfillment systems.
The integration problem is magnified when a company becomes involved in a merger or acquisition. Not only do the individual companies have disparate systems, but the combined entity has duplicate and discrete systems that must be quickly brought together.
Integration servers make it possible to do this quickly, helping companies get their integrated applications into production. This approach helps companies leverage existing investments and avoid the temptation of a hasty and costly migration away from systems in which they've already invested heavily, when the real goal should be to let these existing systems talk to each other.
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Key Requirements
For Integration Servers |
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Application Area
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Functionality
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Integration and development
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Integrates disparate systems cohesively Translates data from multiple dissimilar systems Performs two-way data conversion between systems and performs complex data transformations and aggregated conversions Integrates with relational databases and objects (e.g., Component Object Model or Enterprise JavaBeans) |
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Interapplication communication
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Communicates between applications using messaging technology Supports major communication protocols |
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| Process management | Lets companies automate processes that
span customer inquiries, back-end system access and updates, and return notifications Lets users develop process flows in a graphical environment or modeling tool |
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| Security | Authentication and authorization services
for access to integrated systems |
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| Administration | An interface or console (proprietary or
third party) that lets administrators manage the application environment |
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| Performance and reliability | Scales across machines or processors Caches data for improved performance Manages database connections and threads Logs system performance and sends notifications or alerts to administrators |
Integration servers include packaged connectors or adapters to major enterprise business applications. For example, most integration servers include adapters for enterprise resource planning systems such as those from PeopleSoft and SAP, as well as bridges to major mainframe and host platforms.
Integration servers shorten integration time and reduce custom coding by using prebuilt connectors. By some estimates, these modular pieces of code eliminate 75% of the work associated with performing such integration through custom programming.
It used to be that integrating disparate systems required point-to-point integration--one application was linked to another on a case-by-case basis. For every system that was added to the configuration, additional custom code was required. In addition, none of that custom software could be reused.
In a point-to-point integration model, adding more systems results in management challenges as well as additional expense for development and maintenance. Also, such a model provides little scalability.
To overcome these limitations, integration servers use a hub-and-spoke approach. The integration server is at the center, so connecting a new system means connecting it to the integration server. All other systems tied to the integration server can immediately interoperate with the newly connected system.
Integration servers typically include three components: packaged connectors, a connector development toolkit, and a process designer. These elements specify the integration points and are used to build the business rules for process management.
Most integration servers include a graphical environment that makes using the packaged connectors a point-and-click exercise. With these tools, developers can specify the source application or system, then add the appropriate connector or adapter. The administrator or developer can then begin introspecting the data source--exposing the data and the data layout in a visual representation.
The user can then map the data into a data definition, specifying the translation parameters that are executed at run time. Data translation and transformation are key to allowing disparate systems to talk to each other.
Another critical feature that integration servers offer is process management and automation. Companies that don't have integrated systems typically follow manual processes that can involve multiple departments and back-end systems, even for fairly simple processes such as handling an order from an E-commerce Web site.
With integration servers, business users can define sophisticated process flows that span multiple systems. Many integration servers provide graphical utilities for developing process flows. The system then automatically generates the required business logic to carry out these information flows. At run time, the integration server automates the process flow.
The server also handles the translation and flow of data among systems at run time. Integration servers provide three discrete run-time layers: a transaction layer that ensures data integrity, a messaging layer that handles the data transport, and a transformation layer that performs the required data translation.
The transaction layer acts as the processing monitor for all transactions that flow through the integration server. This layer ensures the integrity of transactions across disparate systems. Some integration servers can ensure two-phase commits, rolling back transactions between systems that don't successfully complete a process.
For example, if a debit is taken from an account and the transaction fails before the credit is posted to another account, the entire transaction rolls back. Integration servers can also keep sending requests to a down system, waiting for it to be restored before completing the transaction.
In many environments, transactions between XA-compliant data stores, such as relational databases, are monitored by dedicated transaction processing monitors such as BEA Systems' Tuxedo. Integration servers allow transaction monitoring across data stores that aren't XA-compliant, such as ERP systems.
Transaction-processing monitors are best for real-time, synchronous transactions such as stock trades and banking applications. Integration server engines are better for asynchronous transaction processing between loosely coupled systems that may not be available at all times, which covers most Web applications.
In many back-office environments, when systems are busy conducting other transactions, requests should ideally be queued until the system is available. Integration servers can guarantee that the transaction will execute without requiring the systems to wait for each other to complete their processing.
Integration servers also include a messaging layer to provide a communication mechanism between systems and transporting data. Integration servers support different delivery methods; some are better for performance, and some are better for integrity. For example, in the fire-and-forget model, the host system sends out data but doesn't receive a notification back to validate that the message was received. This is the fastest but least secure messaging method.
The broadcast or multicast model has the host system send data out to a large number of targets, even if they haven't requested it. In the publish-and-subscribe model, a host system publishes data, and other systems can subscribe to it and notify the host to ensure that the message has been received. This is the most secure method, but also the most resource-intensive.
The transformation layer acts as the data-translation engine that takes data from one system, parses it, and reformats it into a layout that can be understood by another system. Without an integration server, reformatting data requires the use of third-party extraction and translation tools, which must be customized for point-to-point integration between specific systems. Such a model doesn't scale and doesn't provide the benefits of transaction and message integrity.
In production environments, one of an integration server's most important characteristics is its scalability when handling the processing loads and throughput of large-scale E-business operations. Most integration servers support clustering and can run in distributed or federated mode on multiple machines to enable scalability.
Integration servers can balance across queues to ensure that processing loads are evenly distributed, but they still lack the more advanced capabilities found in load-balancing utilities and some application servers.
Most integration servers got their start by focusing on helping companies tie their own systems together, as opposed to integrating with external systems. In fact, we advocate that companies follow the same approach: Integrate your own systems before moving outside to integrate with your business partners' systems.
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Selected Enterprise Integration
Products
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Vendor
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Product
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Actional Control Broker: Software that resides on an application server to provide integration between applications by performing data translations and conversions to native formats |
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BEA eLink Integration Server: Server software that includes application and database adapters, data integration, and business-process options |
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| CrossWorlds Software Burlingame, Calif. 650-685-9000 www.crossworlds.com |
CrossWorlds: Integration platform that includes packaged business-process-integration modules, business objects, prebuilt connectivity to leading applications, and a toolset for integration and customization |
| IBM Armonk, N.Y. 914-499-1900 www.ibm.com |
IBM MQSeries: Middleware platform that includes components for integration, process automation, messaging and queuing, and application adapters |
| iPlanet Mountain View, Calif. 650-254-1900 www.iplanet.com |
Forté Fusion: EAI framework that provides extensive integration and process management capabilities with little programming required |
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New Era of Networks (NEON) |
NEON e-Biz Integrator: Server software
that links applications with application servers or other servers. Includes
components for data transformation message queuing, data routing, and graphical
integration design and process modeling |
| SeeBeyond Monrovia, Calif. 800-425-0541 www.seebeyond.com |
EBusiness Integration Suite: Software with a distributed bus architecture to integrate disparate legacy systems, databases, packaged applications, and middleware |
| Tibco Palo Alto, Calif. 650-846-1000 www.tibco.com |
Active Enterprise: Suite of infrastructure products built on a process automation, messaging, message brokering, system monitoring, and adapters |
| Vitria Technology Sunnyvale, Calif. 408-212-2700 www.vitria.com |
BusinessWare: Integration server that includes a single graphical interface for creating business-process models, connection models for application integration, communication links, and real-time views of the information passing through the platform |
| webMethods Fairfax, Va. 703-460-2500 www.webmethods.com |
WebMethods Enterprise: Standards-based integration server built around the webMethods Enterprise Broker, which manages business-process events and provides the central control and storage point for enterprise integration |
| WRQ Seattle 206-217-7100 www.wrq.com |
WRQ Verastream: Software based on a hub-and-spoke architecture for consolidating host applications, legacy systems, and other data |
Still, business-to-business integration is definitely in the sights of many integration server vendors. Interorganizational integration carries additional complexities such as security, transaction integrity, and routing issues that are easier to control in an intraorganization scenario.
The evolution of B-to-B integration means an increased vendor focus on XML and Java standards. On the data translation side, XML will be critical as a standard mechanism to enable companies to exchange data.
On the architecture side, we expect to see integration server vendors move to Java-based models and support the Java 2 Enterprise Edition specification. J2EE compliance will let integration servers take logic and integration objects (even those developed outside the integration server) and re-use them in various integration scenarios between different systems.
Expect to see a continued shakeout in the crowded integration server market over the next year. The market is crowded and a fair number of players will dissolve or be acquired by other integration server or infrastructure vendors. We're already seeing signs of market convergence. For example, webMethods, a B-to-B integration vendor, recently acquired Active Software, letting the company expand its product set to handle integration behind and beyond the firewall.
There's also convergence in the application server and integration server markets. For example, Sybase Inc. plans to acquire integration server vendor New Era of Networks Inc. BEA Systems now offers an application server and an integration server, plus its Tuxedo transaction-processing software.
For companies looking at integration servers, realize that the landscape is changing and the technology bets you place today will have ramifi-cations on your future infrastructure.
Eric Sanchez is a senior analyst and Joe Fenner is a senior technical editor with Doculabs, an E-business research and advisory firm.You can reach them at info@doculabs.com
Illustration by Michael Waraska
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