Integration Appliances:
The need for application integration is greater than ever within companies as they seek to link legacy applications with newer applications in order to improve internal processes and work more effectively with their business partners. This paper shows why an appliance-based approach to integration not only offers advantages over custom code integrations but also complements integrations developed with custom code.
Traditionally, companies had just two choices for their integration needs—use complex platforms (like EAI) or write custom code. The platform approach evolved to meet the needs of large enterprises and is very expensive to procure, install, deploy and maintain. Therefore, most companies were forced to develop custom code for integrating their applications and, as a result, custom code has become the most widely used integration solution today.
Despite this popularity, companies are acutely aware of the pains of using custom code – it is labor-intensive, time consuming and doesn’t scale as a company grows. With no other viable alternative, companies suffered the pains of debugging and maintaining their integration code even as their business environments became more dynamic. In a world where businesses need to be more agile in responding to changes, a sluggish integration process clearly cannot continue for long before it begins to hurt.
This need has spawned a new type of integration solution called integration appliances. These plug-and-play devices are gaining popularity by bringing significant benefits—more efficiency at lower cost—to solving the most common integration scenarios. This paper explores the benefits of the appliance approach to application integration and provides five reasons why customers should consider this alternative.
Application Integration is Critical
Effective application integration is no longer an option for most organizations—it’s a necessity. The IT systems and applications at large and mid-sized companies today are much more complex than they were even five or ten years ago. Companies have invested millions of dollars in applications – such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), sales force automation (SFA), and supply chain management (SCM) – and these have become vital tools for doing business.
The failure to adequately integrate these business applications can lead to data inaccuracies, sluggish response to marketplace changes and customer demands, lower productivity, poor customer service and other problems. Successful integration, on the other hand, can result in numerous benefits such as greater efficiencies, cost savings, increased sales, and more satisfied customers. As more companies—both large and small—work closely with their business partners and customers, effective application integration becomes vital to the success of their businesses. Given these trends, it’s not surprising that IT shops everywhere are making application integration a high priority. A survey by Baseline magazine showed that application integration was number one on the list of top five projects ranked by average planned spending in 2005. This finding is echoed in annual CIO surveys conducted by Morgan Stanley & Goldman Sachs wherein application integration is repeatedly cited as the #1 problem.
Custom Code Popular due to Lack of Alternatives
At most companies today, IT managers are under pressure to solve business-critical integration problems with limited resources and tight deadlines. And, they need to do so without an appropriate integration solution that meets their needs in terms of cost and time. This is because IT managers until now had just two choices—deploy an integration platform or write custom code. The enterprise application integration (EAI) platform category evolved to meet the needs of large enterprises and is very expensive to procure, install, deploy and maintain. Designed to solve complex integration problems, EAI implementation cycles can span many months. EAI platforms consist of multiple parts including hardware, operating systems, stacks of integration software, endpoint adapters and monitoring software. This complexity and expense made the platform approach a poor choice for the majority of companies due to their resource and time constraints.
Therefore, most companies were forced to use the only other alternative and wrote custom code for integrating their applications. As a result, custom code has become the most widely used integration solution today. Companies use a variety of coding technologies and programming languages for integration including C, Java, Basic, SQL, and others. At first glance, custom code appears to be well-suited for most companies since this approach does not require significant upfront investments and can be tailored to meet each company’s needs.
