Front-end systems must be integrated with back end systems
to get competitive advantage.
There are several different types of integration where the above hypothesis is applicable, B2C (Business to Consumer), B2B (Business to Business), and A2A (Application to Application). To make full use of existing data on legacy systems, companies need to integrate front facing systems with these legacy systems.
Integration means increased automation and less levels of interaction between the end user and the data they are accessing. Middleware integration tools that automatically convert data between formats achieve this. Front and back end systems can also be designed to better integrate with each other, and the end user by becoming more modular and less tied to proprietary protocols. The result is that these systems streamline data delivery, allow for future growth by being more scalable (Linder, 1999, p3), require less maintenance, and allow the company to seamlessly “plug in” new applications as they come on the market.
B2C Systems like e-catalogs, online stores, call centres, and other web-based client facing systems can eliminate complicated document chains and give external users direct access to back-end data (Baron, Shaw, Bailey, 2000, p3). They also give companies competitive advantage by delivering less tangible benefits like personalised content. B2B systems also have a distinct advantage over traditional business communication methods, with almost every aspect being able to be reproduced more efficiently online. Examples include automatic procurement, inventory management, order processing, distribution management, collaborative planning, and customer support (CommerceRoute, 1999, p1). None of the above improvements can be done efficiently without direct integration with back end data stores and processing systems.
Middleware itself acts a central hub for all A2A communications; so all systems (front and back) act as single nodes in a star topology. This allows legacy nodes to be removed as needed and replaced with more efficient sub-systems. All communications between nodes can be monitored from a single location and protocols change on demand, because the Middleware converts them to any format needed. This allows for gradual protocol replacement from older proprietary formats to newer standardised formats like XML.
Integrating front and back tiers can give companies improved efficiency, automation, scalability, modularity, centralised maintenance, and standardisation while fully leveraging existing investments in legacy systems and data.
(Baron, Shaw, Bailey, 2000, p5) say that most large companies are already using online procurement systems and that abandoning legacy systems is not economically feasible. Companies like Blackwoods have heavily invested in older COBOL based back end systems, but that data is still the data used in most B2B and B2C transactions. They are forecasting that their integration strategy will garner 4% in additional revenue.
Web based front-ends are now commonplace, customers can now deal with organisations from more than one location. The services offered by these web based front ends are now as important than the products themselves (Wells, Wolfers, 2000, p2). Newer companies like Innovit recognise this and offer a new breed of extensible, modular e-catalogue systems that integrates with web-based online sales systems (blah). Studies have shown that transaction costs can be reduced by 25% and cycle times by as much as 33% for maintenance, repair, and operations items procured online (Baron, Shaw, Bailey, 2000, p4). Other recent studies show that 90% of companies say they are benefiting from B2B integration (CommerceRoute, 1999, p1). The benefits are set to get better as B2B and A2A product suites are consistently improving; examples of these suites are Websphere (IBM) and Biztalk (Microsoft). These systems both rely heavily on XML, replacing earlier, less efficient stardards like EDI.
There are many EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) success stories; The ASX has implemented SEATS (Stock Exchange Automated Trading System) and the New York Stock Exchange who’s newly integrated system is now live with 3 new enterprise financial applications (Taviz Technology, 2000, p1). It’s hard to directly convert the results of these integration projects into dollars, but SEATS for example changed an entire industry (with help from the internet and online trading sites).
Web Services are being pushed as the new Web based transport mechanism, with recent additions like reliable messaging and transaction support. Microsoft, IBM, and Sun have released draft specifications for reliable messaging – Companies should soon be able to integrate with remote systems using the same HTTP based protocol that they use internally.
B2B Electronic commerce is expected to grow to $1.5 Trillion annually by the end of this year (CommerceRoute, 1999, p1). Business seems to be settling into a more realistic set of expectations from the Internet in the post .com boom – there may well be a B2B boom within the next few years as business’s realise that the more integrated they are the more mutually beneficial it will be. Integration Suites of products are getting better all of the time, the next wave of releases (e.g. Microsoft’s new Integration suite – Jupiter) promise to offer even more integration options and tools (Judge, 2003, p1).
There is a growing movement toward code integration, with software that is not reliant on specific platforms, and in some cases, language types, and constructs. Virtual machines can be installed on various platforms and large class libraries support almost every conceivable function. These class libraries and virtual machines come with many integration tools and can be installed on (or access) legacy machines. Microsoft’s .NET platform and Sun’s J2EE are examples of these tools. Custom adapters for existing integration products (like IBM’s MQSeries) can be built for any platform that supports the Virtual Machine. Off the shelf products may NOT be the future of Enterprise Integration as it may be more cost effective to write custom applications to do the job.
REFERENCES
·
Microsoft to turn its
e-business servers into a suite, 2003
Peter Judge http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126327,00.html
·
Innovit in the Press, 2003 Innovit http://www.innovit.com/press_releases.asp#SiliconValley
·
Web-based E-catalog systems in B2B Procurement, 2000 John Baron,
Michael Shaw, and Andrew Bailey
·
Finance with a Personalized Touch, 2000 Nigel Wells, and Jeff Wolfers
·
Integrated Applications Landscapes, 1999 Dr Ulrich Linder
·
The Hidden Costs of Enterprise Application Integration, 2000 Taviz Technology
· B2B Integration: A Revolution in the Making, 1999 CommerceRoute http://www.commerceroute.com/Products/White_Papers/B2B/b2b.html