Types of Application Integration Information Oriented IST 421

Types of Application Integration: Information Oriented IST 421 Spring 2007

n Enterprise integration should enable organizations to become more agile and flexible. This means: Continuously monitor market demand n Quickly respond by providing new products, services & information n Quickly introduce new technologies n Quickly modify business methods n Lee, Siau, & Hong, Enterprise Integration with ERP and EAI, Communications Of the ACM, Vol. 46, Number 2, February 2003, 54 -60.

Coupling n n n The act of bringing together Binding logic with data; level of interdependency between the two components Problems: Creates one application and database out of many, each dependent on the other n Over time, a change to any system means a change to the coupled systems as well n

Cohesion n Act of “sticking” together Applications and databases are independent Changes to any source system should not affect the others

Coupling vs. Cohesion n n The goal is to have loosely coupled components so that there is little or no dependency Integration solutions should be cohesive rather than coupled

Integration Models n n An approach and configuration used to integrate software It emphasizes one or two of the following attributes: Simplicity of performing the integration n Reusability of integration for different configurations n Breadth of possible approaches to integration n Expertise required to perform integration n

Integration Models n There are four general categories to consider for integration: Information-oriented n Business process integration-oriented n Service-oriented n Portal-oriented n

Information-Oriented n Information-oriented approach suggests that integration should occur between databases Data replication n Data federation n Interface processing n

Information-Oriented n Data Replication Move data between two or more databases n Provide the infrastructure to exchange data n Advantages to this technique: n Simple n Low cost n

Data-Level Integration

Data-Level Integration n A variety of tools and data access middleware have been used to access and integrate at the data level Batch file transfer n Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) n Database access middleware – provide connectivity to distributed databases n Data transformation – convert data from source database format into target database format; EBCDIC to ASCII n

When to Use it n n n Combine data from multiple sources for analysis and decision making Provide multiple applications with read access to a common source of information Allow data to be extracted from one source and reformatted and updated in another

Data-Level Integration n Advantages: Tools and techniques currently exist n Relatively easy n Requires no changes to the application logic or database structure n Provides access to a wider range of data n Allows data to be reused across other applications n

Data-Level Integration n Disadvantages: n Need to rewrite business logic

Other Data Source to Consider n n n Relational databases IDMS IMS VSAM ISAM Flat files

Information Integration solution set that works: Identify the data n Catalog the data into a data dictionary n Reason for the data n Ownership n Format n Security n Role in the data structure n n Build the enterprise metadata model n Used as a master guide for integrating

Information Integration n n Maintain integrity issues Data latency Real time n Near time n One time n

Information Integration