It is important for organisations undertaking an integration project to understand that integration is not a "product", and that the process of integrating the applications, databases and legacy systems involved in an organisation`s critical business processes into a smoothly working system is a highly complex exercise that requires experienced development and deployment teams.
An enterprise application integration (EAI) specialist was once quoted as saying that "an EAI implementation is usually a combination of a bit of off-the-shelf software, a lot of custom work, and no small amount of black magic" (Test Centre RX, InfoWorld, 11 August 2000). While that may once have been true, developments in the market have resulted in the availability of solutions that comply with standards and are easy to use.
With vendors fighting for the technology space, market consolidation has helped to strengthen integration products technically. Integration tools are thus becoming richer, and much more price competitive. As a result, people have started to realise that it`s better to buy rather than build integration technology.
The acceptance and implementation of standards has had much to do with this, as has the development of Web services. Integration has also moved into business process management and business activity monitoring, which bodes well for sectors such as retail and manufacturing as it enables the real-time monitoring of stock levels and movement, among other things.
We are now at the point where the functionality that large companies are demanding from their integrated systems requires a great amount of development work. This is particularly true where enterprise-wide solutions based on huge infrastructures are concerned. As a result, there is usually a steep learning curve involved for developers who have to spend much time getting their heads around the product, invariably resulting in project delays. For this reason, a much higher level of project efficiency and success is assured for companies that bring in a professional services team that knows the product well and has proven delivery expertise.
Certainly, among the pros of going it alone on an integration project is the fact that if you do the coding yourself, you will know what you are getting. On the other hand, people tend to underestimate the amount of effort that goes into an integration project - often, what is thought of as a three-month programme ends up taking longer than a year.
With vendors fighting for the technology space, market consolidation has helped to strengthen integration products technically.
Nick Warren, Integration Product Manager, Sybase South Africa.
Another risk is the level of reliance on the person who wrote the program - if that person leaves the company, will anyone else understand the system in place?
Internally developed systems also often solve specific requirements only, and do not take into account longer-term requirements. This makes it far more difficult to extend the existing architecture at a later stage.
Companies also need to count the costs of taking highly skilled people away from the business-focused areas in which they are working and using them to write integration programs.
Perhaps the most important consideration for companies setting out on an integration project is the fact that application integration is a system, not a tool. It is not like a business intelligence tool, or a CRM product that you can buy and implement. On the contrary, it needs to be configured, monitored and managed if you are going to use it effectively. Much like implementing a database, you need to organise and plan for the implementation of an application integration system. Without a perfectly honed focus on this, system performance will be undermined, and problems will be difficult to address. This will end up in lots of meetings and deep user dissatisfaction.
The solution lies in making sure that you bring in the skills and services required to ensure the integration process runs smoothly. Vendor selection is key, with the proof of concept approach being a great starting point. Depending of course on the size of the project, a proof of concept will enable you to see the capabilities of both the product and the vendor. The fact that integration is a tricky business cannot be overstated, and every organisation has different and very particular requirements. An expert integration team can save you the pain that is caused by delays and frustrations around integration projects, so it is essential to ensure that your chosen vendor has the services and knowledge that go along with the product. There are many big name vendors in SA, but not all of them have the skills required to service the products they sell.
Also, it`s vital to ascertain whether your chosen product is likely to be around for a while: integration is like plumbing, and it`s extremely unpleasant to have to rip out and replace it once it has been put in place. It`s hard enough to do it right once!
The ability to integrate islands of information within and beyond enterprises is a key business success factor these days. Sybase sponsors ITWeb`s integration industry portal, which takes a look at the burning issues here.
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