Home Page  
  Technology Products Services Support Partners Corporate  

  Technology

Concepts   
Smart Tags     
Intelligence     
Processes     
Architecture    
Perspectives    
Landscape     
Categories      
EAI       
User-To-System    
Portals, EII    
Security    
Workflow    
White Papers    
Web Resources
Contact Information
© 2004-2007
Data Management Assoc, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

Terms of Use |  Privacy
 

The Integration Landscape


 

Information As An Asset

In this current information society people more than ever before understand the benefits achieved by quick and easy access to information.  Business "Information Workers" are beginning to recognize that the information stored within their company is truly a valuable asset.

Information Worker:  The term has been used to describe any person in the enterprise who actively participates in information flow or business processes.  Including both computer and Internet devices, it is estimated that 100 million people are information workers.

Information can only become truly valuable to users when it is easily accessed.  Unfortunately, data within an organization is stored in many different applications and documents.  Not being readily available, information has not been utilized effectively by most information workers while interacting with employees, customers or suppliers.  The wide distribution of data within organizations has presented a great challenge to gaining a tangible "return on information."

The Problem of Integration

Today's business world is much more complex than it was a decade ago relative to information management.  Modern companies have several different applications running their businesses - not just one.  Those applications were written using different technologies and were developed for different purposes - often implemented at the departmental level of a larger organization.  Initially, there was no integration problem because business applications were created to automate specific tasks and perform independent functions.  However, as more and more applications were needed, integration issues became apparent.  For example:
Business users found that reports run in one system did not match corresponding reports run in another system
A customer's account history might have been spread between two or more different data systems
Multiple database applications contained the same or similar information, such as customer names and addresses
When that information was edited or when additional information was added it was necessary for the users to make entries in all of the applications

Software Integration Technology

A user placing an order on an e-commerce Web Site expects their order  to flow through immediately to the vendor's accounting and customer relations management (CRM) systems.  Business competition pressures such as this drove larger vendors to undergo costly, large-scale custom integration projects.  Seamless integration is still not commonplace in most companies .  Most contact management packages, vertical market software and common accounting packages are not easily integrated.

The problem of integration still exists because integration technology is fundamentally complex and costly.  No standard integration methods have been established allowing companies to simply connect to each other's databases.  In addition:
Most common software packages were written several years ago, without application integration in mind.
Most businesses require database structures that are unique to their own business processes, meeting needs that are specific to their own individual businesses.
Database semantics vary widely.  Universal industry standards have not yet been established.
Various levels of integration have been layered in, but in dissimilar manners.

The software industry is in a period of late adolescence.  Similar to a sophomore in college, the software industry is just beginning to become interested in more significant endeavors that lead the way to maturity.  Those endeavors include: standardization, interoperability/integration, software reuse, business process management (BPM), business process outsourcing (BPO), and return-on-investment (ROI).

If we were to grade software applications five years ago on their ability to "Play well with others" the grades would have ranged from "C" to "F" (average grade: "D").  Today, the grades range from "A" to "F" (average grade: "C").  The industry is making progress on the integration front, but it still has some maturing to do!

Software development has evolved into many diverse sub-specialties.  Integration is a discipline unto itself which needs to span many business models, integration approaches, application types and data sources.


     Integration Categories