Introduction to Enterprise Application Integration Platforms

1
Introduction to Enterprise Application
Integration Platforms

• David S. Linthicum
• Chief Technology Officer
• SAGA Software, Inc.

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New Book
3
Defining The Problem

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The Integration Problem (i.e. Opportunity)

• Multiple, disparate applications
• Custom
• Legacy
• Packaged
• Multiple platforms
• Multiple databases
• Multiple transaction processors
• Multiple data entry points
• Multiple versions of the same data
• Incompatible business data

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The Problem
70 of all code written today consists of
interfaces, protocols and other procedures to
establish linkages among various systems
30 of entire IT budget is spent on building,
maintaining, and supporting application
integration
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EAI is Expensive!
82.5 Billion Application Integration Efforts
1998 IT Budget Total 275 Billion
Source Forrester Research
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Factors Contributing To The Problem

• Application systems are built at different times
  by different groups operating independently of
  each other
• Organizations are stuck in a quagmire of
  incompatible architectures and hardtomaintain,
  but hardertoeliminate legacy applications
• Organizations are embracing a buy before build
  strategy that favors purchased application
  packages over internal development

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Trends Driving The EAI Problem

• Growing adoption of packaged applications
• Base of business critical legacy systems
• Multiple platforms, protocols and technologies
• Internet is driving business to business activity

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Enterprise Application Integration Market
Application Integration
(Includes engines for transformation, rules
publish/subscribe adapters)
Millions
43 CAGR (19972001)
Source Gartner Group
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The ResultIslands Of Automation
Data Warehouse
Sales Automation
S390 Legacy System
Heterogeneity
Data Syntax
ERP Production Systems
Info Context
Web Applications
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Short Term Goal Of EAI
Preserve and leverage existing information
technology systems
Bridge diverse islands of automation
Purchase and integrate best of breed offered
by independent software vendors
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Long Term Goal Of EAI
Integrate systems by sharing methods (composite
applications)
Provide a change-as-grow go approach
Deep integration and management layers offered
by vendors
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Disorder Today
Application
Application
Application
Application
Application
Application
Application
14
Order Tomorrow
Application
Application
Application
EAI
Application
Application
Application
Application
But, what is EAI technology?
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Message Broker Vendors Say
Application
Application
Application
Message Brokers
Application
Application
Application
Application
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Application Server Vendors Say
Application
Application
Application
Application Servers
Application
Application
Application
Application
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Distributed Object Guys Say
Application
Application
Application
Distributed Objects
Application
Application
Application
Application
More on this later...
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In The Past We Coded Our Way To EAI
Data
Packaged Applications
10011010000101010101110100110100101010100010 10100
101010
Code
Middleware
LegacyApps
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Now, We Are Looking To Work Smarter
Components
Data
Packaged Applications
Middleware
LegacyApps
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The Middleware-Centric Enterprise
Business Event 1 New customer is entered in the
Accounting System
ADABAS
DB/2
SAP Financials
Siebel Customer Service
CustID
CICS Credit Mgmt
CustID
How does a middleware-centric enterprise move
information between independent applications?
BAAN Distribution System
CustID
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The Business-Process Centric Enterprise
Business Event 1 New customer is entered in the
Accounting System
MESSAGE BROKER
Siebel Customer Service
CustID
Event-driven Minimum programming Pre-built
Adapters Distributed Multiple Platform Inherent
Management Built-in Software Distribution
CICS Credit Mgmt
CustID
BAAN Distribution System
CustID
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Example Supply-Chain Integration

• Note
• Stock is a combination of BIN and UNIT
• Old name is Genset

Business Event New EDI message from the German
Supplier
Stock 23-ZAQ123 Desc Count 106
Output Message 1 Update CICS Transid
GENU Stock BIN Unit Desc Generator-II
CICS Inventory
Input Message ZA-Change
Transformation Routing
BIN 23 Unit ZAQ123 Price

• Note
• Two changes
• Description
• Price

• Note
• Price is in US

Type ZA-Change BIN 23 Unit ZAQ123 Desc
Generator-II Price 199.99 Marks
Output Message 2 Update SAP iDoc INVCON BIN
BIN Unit Unit Price lookup
SAP Billing
Currency lookup
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Example Web Commerce
Business Event New Order message from the Web
Rule Create Credit Check message only if Amount
gt 3000
CICS Credit Check
Transformation Content Routing
Input Message Order
MQ Accounting
Rule Create MQ message only if Credit Check Y
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Message Broker Architecture
Rules
Node Manager
Transformation Service
Routing
User Interface Service
Enterprise Messaging Service
JMS
RMI
Validate
RDBMS (Persistence)
Admin Console
Filter
Workbench
Routing
Agent Service
Repository Service
Node Service
JNDI
Adapter
Adapter
Adapter
Adapter Development Kit
RDBMS
Middleware
Databases
Storage Service
EntireX Tuxedo MQ-series MSMQ, CICS, etc.
ADABAS RDBMS JDBC ODBC etc.
Applications
SAP, BAAN Peoplesoft, Natural, Lawson, etc
RDBMS
Logs, etc
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Why Existing EAI Methods Fall Short

• Point to point file transfer
• Key issuessecurity, guaranteed delivery, real
  time support
• Primitive and difficult to manage
• Database gateways
• Data level integration only
• Does not scale
• Custom coding
• Requires cross platform expertise
• Requires application specific expertise
• Takes too long!

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E-business and EAI Are Joined At The Hip

• Business-to-business
• Supply chain integration
• Business-to-business web integration
• Business-to-consumer
• Business-to-consumer
• EAI for intra-company trading

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Making Sense of EAI

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Macro Approaches to EAI

• Coupled - Binding of methods together to form
  integrated application pairs
• Does not scale and limits system types
• Invasive
• Cohesive - Event-driven integration of both
  methods and data
• Integrates a variety of systems using a variety
  of design patterns
• Noninvasive

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Types Of EAI

• Data level
• Application interface level
• Method level
• User interface level

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Levels of Enterprise Integration
User Interface-Level
Mainframe
Mainframe
Method-Level
Business Process
Business Process
Application Interface-Level
Applications
Applications
Data-Level
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Data Level EAI
User Interface
User Interface
Logic
Logic
Data
Data
EAI
Transformation Formatting
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Value Of Data Level EAI

• Its inexpensive
• Its proven
• Availability of technology and expertise
• Its fast
• Risk adverse

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Issues With Data Level EAI

• Does not solve the ultimate method integration
  problem, more of a stopgap measure
• Does not scale well for OLTP type application
  integration
• Could mask important issues with the enterprise
  information systems

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Enabling Technology For Data Level EAI

• Middleware
• Database-oriented middleware
• ODBC
• JDBC
• Database gateways
• Message brokers and other MOM
• Data warehouse tools and technology
• ETL
• Database replication features

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Application Interface Level EAI

• Big 3 SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle
• Packaged application interfaces
• Back doors are open
• Back doors are closed
• Integration layers
• Data
• Objects
• Business services

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Application Interface Level EAI
Business Services
Full Service Interface
Objects
Data
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Other Interfaces

• Vertical Market
• Health Care
• Manufacturing
• Financial
• Others

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Custom Application Integration

• Rolling your own API
• Application wrapping
• Finding points of integration

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Application Wrapping
GUI
Process
Process
Process
Object
Data
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Value Of Application Interface Level EAI

• Provides method, as well as data sharing
  mechanism
• Moves information out of systems, once difficult
  to to access
• Provides the infrastructure for sharing common
  business processes
• Supports common business problems, such as
  mergers and acquisitions

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Issues With Application Interface Level EAI

• Interfaces that packaged application vendors
  provide vary from good to nonexistent
• Everyone is claiming tight integration with
  packaged applications but true packaged
  application integration difficult to achieve
  without a lot of customization
• The big 3 are slow to open up the doors

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Enabling Technology

• Middleware
• Message brokers
• Database-oriented middleware
• Application servers
• Distributed objects
• Proprietary packaged application utilities
• Packaged applications themselves

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Method Level EAI

• Process integration to create a composite
  application
• Sharing business logic
• Sharing code
• Sharing processing
• Shared programs
• Shared transactions
• Shared objects

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Value Of Method Level EAI

• Provides true code reuse infrastructure for many
  enterprise applications
• Availability of technology and expertise
• Ultimate EAI solution for many enterprises

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Issues With Method Level EAI

• Much more complex and expensive than the other
  approaches
• Takes a lot of time, architecture, and planning
• Enabling technology may not scale to enterprise
  class applications or fall short in other ways

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Enabling Technology

• Application servers
• TP monitors
• Distributed objects
• Traditional development tools

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User Interface Level EAI

• EAI of last resort?
• Screen scraping
• Approaches
• Screens as objects
• Screens as data

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Value Of User Interface Level EAI

• Does not require changes to source or target
  systems
• Does not require creating a new interface, or any
  interface
• Low risk, low cost
• Technology is available and stable

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Issues With User Interface Level EAI

• Performance
• Perceptions
• Only prolonging the EAI problem in many instances

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Enabling Technology

• 3270 emulators
• Terminal application libraries
• Screen to object translators
• Message broker and application server adapters

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Enabling Technologies

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Types Of Middleware

• Connection-oriented middleware
• Message-oriented middleware
• Database-oriented middleware
• Transaction-oriented middleware
• Object request brokers
• Message brokers

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Message Broker
Tools
Data Transformation
Intelligent Routing
Repository
Rules Engine
Message Broker
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The Solution A Message Broker
Message Broker
Application A
Application B

• Applications are empowered to create messages
  encapsulating additions/changes/deletions of
  their business objects
• A message broker routes and distributes the
  messages to the various integrated applications
• The broker transforms the data into the
  appropriate representation for the destination
• The broker contains logic to assist in the
  execution of business process work flow

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Typical Message Broker Architecture
APPLICATIONS
DATABASES
MIDDLEWARE APPLICATION SERVERS
Management
Services
Repository Service
Node Services
Agent Adapter Services
Agent Service
Adapter Component
ADK
Integration Services
Routing Service
Transformation Service
Integration Workbench
Messaging Services
Admin Console
Message Warehouse Service
Enterprise Messaging Svc
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Progression Of Enterprise Integration Solutions
Process Automation
Message Brokering and Translation
Value
Transport
EI Implementation Order
Source Dain Rauscher Wesseis
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Inter-Enterprise Enterprise Integration
Virtual Enterprise
Company B
Company A
EAI
System 1
System 2
System 1
Translate
System 3
System 2
Route
Company D
Company C
Rules
System 1
System 2
System 1
System 3
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Application Servers andMessage Brokers Merge
Applications
Applications
Share Methods
Share Information
Transaction
Translate
Transaction
Route
Transaction
Rules
Transaction
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EAI On-The-Move

• Making systems more valuable
• Saving money
• Freeing the information for the enterprise
• Integration not perspiration"

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Where To Go For More Information

• Books
• Enterprise Application Integration
• Enterprise Application Integration Using Java and
  XML
• Essential Client/Server Survival Guide, Second
  Edition
• David Linthicums Guide to Client/Server and
  Intranet Development
• Magazines
• Software Development Magazine, Middleware
  Spectrum, Distributed Computing, Component
  Strategies, EAI Journal.
• Online
• www.mesageq.com, www.techweb.com

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Wrap Up!