Simplifying EAI

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Simplifying EAI
HPTS 99

• Paul Butterworth
• Forté Software Inc.
• paul_at_forte.com

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Integrate and Develop

• Extended and Composite Applications
• Generally involve pulling together many of the
  functional systems within your environment --
  Integrate
• Combine existing functional systems with new
  functions -- Develop
• Deploy these to new audiences (customers and
  partners) -- Develop

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Whats Hard in EAI?

• Hooking up the applications - they dont want to
  be integrated.
• No interfaces
• Batch systems
• getting confirmation
• screen scraping
• Settling on or converting data representations
• Recovering from errors
• Managing performance

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Too Many Moving Parts

• Applications
• Transformations
• Interfaces
• Messaging
• Web
• App Servers
• DBMSs

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Two Types of Integration

• Tightly-coupled Components
• CORBA, COM, Java models
• Generally Synchronous
• Loosely-coupled Components
• Applications and Packages
• Generally Asynchronous
• Both Required in Most Systems

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How do we simplify EAI?

• Process-based Integration
• The business value is in automating the process
  (particularly in web applications) not in the
  plumbing.
• XML Data Interchange
• The best bet for interoperability
• Component Assembly for faster integration and
  development
• TOOL
• Java
• COM and CORBA
• One Button Run

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Forté Fusion Architecture
Forté Fusion Backbone
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Forté Fusion Components
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Who Owns the Business Data?

• EAI framework holds a bunch of business data.
• Business wants access to it.
• EAI framework is now in the database business.
• Some of the state (state of the process/message)
  must be there.

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Performance

• A bunch of disparate applications
• Many layers of software
• Implications
• Too many requests
• Too many translations
• Too many failures (see next issue)

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Keeping This Mess Running

• Lots of applications
• Lots of infrastructure
• Lots of machines
• Lots of communications
• What doesnt go wrong?

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Who Worries About the Boring Stuff?

• Installing new versions of software
• Compatibility
• System management
• Footprint

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Summary

• Its more than just messaging
• Tools for
• Development
• Mapping
• Assembly
• Deployment
• Operations