First there was deployment of acronym applications like SCM, CRM, ERP etc.
and now there is a need to allow these applications to talk to one another
without changing the underlying application code or overhauling infrastructure.
It is called the enterprise application integration (EAI) technology that
proposes to put together disparate applications and data systems for an
organization. Earlier custom made software programs like sales automation, human
resources, and database management systems were built to run independently. But
now as organizations grow the need to transfer and share information between
these systems is also growing. EAI entered the picture to help these custom-made
applications, built on disparate legacy systems, to communicate.
Data integration using |
What is an EAI package?
EAI has evolved from traditional methods of EDI. There are various tools
incorporated within an EAI package to deliver their promise of B2B and A2A or
integrating business functions. It typically constitutes a message pass,
adapters/connectors, a development kit, and an in-built architecture. A message
is passed between functions of disparate applications like an alert between a
SAP and a CRM for which open standards technologies must be used like JMS.
Adapters that are used for data level integration (as described below) are
generally specific to the technology while connectors are specific to an
application package. For example, SAP comes with a J2CA compliant connector that
allows transfer of data.
The development kit that comes with an EAI package allows customers to create
their own adapters/connectors with the tools available and according to needs.
" But for each SAP implementation the connectors will have to be different
for different customers as their needs and infrastructure would be different. In
almost every case only 30% of the connecting work using adapters/connectors are
customized," says Atul Saini, CEO, Fiorano. Fiorano’s Tifosi comes with
as many as 300 adapters to meet different requirements.
"As much as 30% of the costs associated with implementing a major
packaged application will be consumed by integration. So using a adapters and
connectors will reduce these integration costs by almost one-third," claims
Sanjay Khendry, VP, GE Business Development at Sierra Atlantic, Hyderabad.
Peer-to-peer
To help customers solve integration problems, work is on by application
vendors to re-architecture and incorporate open standard connectors or
components while EAI vendors are focusing on encompassing middleware and
business processes for various packaged solutions using open standard
architecture. In a span of 12 years since EAI first originated, EAI solutions
have evolved from point to point integration solutions to the hub and spoke
integration solutions and today finally to a peer-to-peer architecture, and some
to a hybrid. In a peer-to-peer architecture there is no single integration
server but most processing happens at the source and target systems. There are a
lot of middleware companies that have aggressively moved into peer-to-peer
architecture. Fiorano for example, has a hybrid of a peer-to-peer EAI solutions
and hub-to-spoke help to integrate enterprise applications, e-commerce
applications, Internet applications, and traditional EDI and inter-enterprise
applications. So depending on the need and the infrastructure in place EAI
requirements will vary from one enterprise to another.
An EAI package in general must support the following:
-
An EAI solution must be able to adapt to the changing IT
infrastructure that constitutes various classes of databases, middleware by
various vendors, and file types etc; and -
The software must not be bound to a single integration
topology or architecture. It must support multiple topologies, as no single
topology would help meet all needs.
Driving down costs and risk
One of the reasons why an EAI implementation has been an expensive
proposition is because getting these varied applications from across an
organization to talk to one another required knowledge of propriety technology
and skilled programming. In today’s market most of the EAI packages are
standardized. The market trend is toward application vendors providing open
standard connectors so that EAI vendors can use them when connecting
applications together and helping to build open standard adapters. Some
standards used during application integration are EDI, XML, SWIFT, and HIPAA.
"The usage of standards helps in making the integration
scalable as once an object is in a standard form it can be shared with one or
more application with no additional effort using a middleware platform,"
says Khendry.
The customers in the EAI space must look toward more
standardized solutions to lower their cost of EAI initiatives and risk of vendor
lock-ins. So the more standardized the EAI solution is the better. The trend
toward standards is evident in the following example. Previously connectors to
SAP and Siebel were available only when bundled with a proprietary integration
broker. Now these connectors or adapters are in compliance with the Java 2
Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Connector Architecture standard so as to allow them to
work as plug-and-play adapters with J2EE application servers. So buyers or
customers must look for those solutions that are built around standards and
select those that best suits their needs.
"Definitely, the adoption of standards has reduced the
development costs," says Atul. "The client does not need to know the
implementation specifics of the service, thereby reducing the development
cost." Most solutions offered by application vendors have support for
standards and have developed using languages like Java, C, and VB etc. and on
XML.
"Application infrastructure is the fastest growing
segment in the worldwide market as against services and applications. It is
growing at CAGR of 23% (IDC report). In India is also evident as more and more
companies in Bangalore are setting up labs for developing components and
technologies that enable heterogeneous applications to communicate," says
Srikant Rao. Globally firms with revenues greater $1 billion will spend an
average of $6.3 million this year on EAI.
EAI initiatives are difficult and the market may take time to
mature in India. However there is a good potential for vendors as most
enterprises in India use legacy or homebred applications and would probably like
to integrate them. And as EAI becomes an inevitable need for enterprises to keep
up with the dynamics of the market, one must always look toward standards to
lower the cost of EAI initiatives and reduce the vendor risks that are often
associated with EAI products.
Radhika Bhuyan In New
Delhi
CASE STUDY: Rumblings at DMC
DMC Stratex Networks
Start up year: 1984
Employees: 1,100
Annual revenues: $400 million
EAI package: Sierra Atlantic’s Application
Networks (solution developed in Hyderabad). Sierra Atlantic integrates and
develops solutions using solutions from a mixed breed of vendors
Line of business: Manufacturer of wireless
cellular infrastructure and broadband access
Object for EAI implementation: Automate order
fulfillment systems
Platform used: Vitria’s BusinessWare
Business Challenges/Objectives
After acquiring several companies in different cities spread across the
country and globe, California-based DMC Stratex Networks, found itself with
several disparate legacy systems, including Computer Associates’ CA-MANMAN,
Oracle Applications, and Chameleon Software. So it wanted a solution that would
help integrate and automate these systems into one standardized solution.
Every order at DMC is customized on a huge scale with
thousands of expensive units going through the order fulfillment process. So
making changes to an order of that scale becomes a time-consuming process. So
they wanted a totally integrated system for all their enterprise applications
and with which they could go on adding additional enterprise applications. In
addition they wanted a platform that would allow them to integrate new
acquisitions easily.
So DMC wanted to:
- Integrate disparate legacy systems, while
maintaining information to an Oracle database - Automate order fulfillment processes, and make order
changes and process orders faster - Facilitate corporate acquisitions and organization
changes through standardization of integrated disparate systems
The Solution
DMC went on to integrate Oracle as its back-office application, Agile for
product content management, Siebel for product configuration and sales force
automation and Clarify for CRM at a business process level.They wanted to
maintain links between all these legacy systems to the main Oracle database,
while still working on legacy system in different cities.
Implementation time:
4 months
Connected: Clarify, Agile, Siebel, Oracle and
other legacy applications
Operating system: Sun Solaris
Platform: Vitria BusinessWare
Result
Earlier DMC had a fairly manual process in order fulfillment, which took two
weeks to complete but now the same thing is done within two days. The decrease
in cycle time has resulted in increased revenue because of the ability to handle
more customers at a time and larger orders in volume. It was able to witness
four consecutive quarters of record sales after that. The solution did not need
them to hire more people to process more orders in a shorter period.
So overall it:
- Reduced processing time for a customized order from
two weeks to two days - Streamlined resources and improved productivity
without adding head-count - Decreased cycle times, lowered operating costs and
increased revenue - Created the ability to adapt to changes quickly and
efficiently without custom code changes to the application - Improved customer service processes on a global
scale
Inputs from Zia Askari/CNS in Hyderabad
CASE STUDY: ICICIDirect.com
During the last few years, ICICI has been working hard
to keep up with new customers and demands for online trading. In order to
facilitate online trading ICICI wanted the separate legacy applications that
held customer’s bank account, the demat accounts and broker accounts, to be
integrated into one. So it decided to develop and implement a middleware based
on open standards. It created a special task force to build an online ordering
system in Java that enables retail customers to trade online over the Internet
using a browser. The online trading system runs on a J2EE compliant application
server and has integrated these applications using BEA’s Tuxedo. BEA’s
Tuxedo uses CORBA to allow application communicate to one another and pass
information or data between these applications. Transactions happen in a 128-bit
encryption format.
Implementation time:
3 months
Benefits: Value addition to customers
Result: The online
ordering system has been a huge success and is also the only kind in India. The
integrated system built on open standards would not pose a problem if ICICI
intends to integrate or add more applications. The solution from BEA has enabled
to tie the various components of web trading between the bank, demat section and
the broker accounts into a single entity.
Levels of Integration
One must approach an EAI vendor to provide them with an integrated and mixed
suite of solutions to avoid vendor lock-ins. An EAI integration happens at
several points:
Message level: Technologies that support message level integration are
messaging and object request broker (ORB), which manages communications and data
exchange between objects. This is the most basic level of integration that
involves passing information or message queues over a middleware. Information is
passed by using standards such as JMS (Java Messaging Service), which an EAI
package incorporates, such as Fiorano’s MQ. Other messaging middleware
products are IBM’s MQSeries, Microsoft’s MSMQ, JMS, and BEA’s MessageQ
which are designed to handle information transfer within a distributed computing
environment.
Data level: These are points from where data is introduced like the
application’s database, flat file, API and document style interfaces. At this
level, connectors, rule-based routing, and adapters are used as a backbone
connection to transfer data between applications. Prior to integration data that
needs to be transferred from one application to another must be identified and
cataloged. The above mentioned tools help in data sharing and distributing and
some help to pull data from a database, and then transform the data so that it
is compatible with a second database and then load it into that second database.