Appendix B. Where XML Fits with Application Integration

Fundamentally, application integration is about loosely coupling applications and data stores together to solve intraenterprise business problems. Its strength is facilitating the free flow of information from any system to any other system, one-to-one or many-to-many, with each of those systems gaining access to perfect external information in real time.

Application integration typically integrates ERP packages such as SAP, PeopleSoft, and Baan in addition to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) packages, databases, and older mainframe systems. Application integration also allows organizations to externalize existing enterprise application information to interested parties, including real-time B2B information exchanges, and Web-enabled applications.

XML comes into the application integration picture at several levels, including data interchange, schema transformation, metadata management, process integration, and even message persistence. However, the use of XML within the firewall needs some architectural thought, with the objective to leverage the appropriate XML technologies to address the appropriate technical problems. Complicating this is the fact that XML standards are either emerging or changing, and many enterprise architects and CIOs may consider leveraging XML-enabled technologies for application integration to be high risk, at least in the short term. This is not to be confused with the B2B problem domains, where the use of XML is more acceptable.



Next Generation Application Integration(c) From Simple Information to Web Services
Next Generation Application Integration: From Simple Information to Web Services
ISBN: 0201844567
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 220

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net