The concept of integrating disparate systems into a homogenised whole was prevalent in the early1990s when there were few industry standards in place and software programs worked in isolation from one another.
Times have changed, says Willie Bezuidenhout, senior business technologist at Computer Associates (Africa). He advises us to regard the concept of systems integration - and systems integrators in particular - as part of history.
The disparity of IT systems, platforms and solutions that plagued business in the 1990s provided so-called business consultants with an opportunity to integrate a variety of data, audio, video and communication systems for customers who were led to believe they needed these services to operate on a common platform in order to conduct business.
These "systems integrators" preached the "best of breed" gospel to their customers and went to extraordinary lengths to integrate solutions from a wide variety of individual organisations in the belief that, in terms of their overall value, "the whole is better than the sum of its parts".
The landscape has changed. This clich'e is out of currency: Off the shelf "shrink-wrapped" solutions are available today that are able to assist users of legacy systems to integrate disparate systems without costly source code changes or complex middleware.
Most major software vendors have for the past five years been able to interface their systems with a variety of platforms negating the services of the systems integration charlatans.
Various guises
Systems integrators have been seen in various guises - from business analysts to systems designers and product procurement specialists.
In some cases, they have been able to pass themselves off successfully as implementation and systems managers.
However, the "systems integration" wave has finally spent itself on the sands of technology advancement.
This happened at the turn of the century. Since then, the only value in studying systems integration methodologies and processes is to learn from history - and the mistakes that were made.
Today, we need to ask why some organisations continue to preach the "systems integration gospel" when the need to integrate disparate systems has long passed.
Data integration
For those who believe there is still value to be gained from systems integration, here is the newsflash: data integration is now the key to business efficiency.
But a word of caution: data integration solutions are only of value to an organisation once its business goals and objectives have been clearly defined.
As this phase was never a prerequisite for the integration of disparate systems, many organisations landed up spending considerable amounts of money chasing impossible goals and empty promises, finally ending up in technology dead-ends as progress overtook their efforts.
We should learn from the lessons of the past. Business drivers, marketplace opportunities, manufacturing challenges, distribution strategies, partnership agreements, and other market-related issues are now central to success.
Business functions - in terms of IT solutions - need to be delivered against this backdrop.
Web services
One of the best means of achieving this is just over the horizon. Eagerly awaited by business technologists, Web services technologies are seen by many as the answer to data integration and other information delivery challenges.
At the moment, Web services is for visionaries. There are so many options, ideas and suggestions in the air. Unlike the notion of system integration, it is an absolutely new way of "thinking and doing".
Will Web services become the new killer application - the magic wand of the IT industry in the 21st century? Time will tell. As with system integration, Web services can go wrong if business issues are not central to application development.
Business efficiency
Web services is all about business efficiency. It provides packaged components that deliver specific business functions based on a number of basic performance criteria.
Significantly, these components are written once, tested once and reused many times in many parts of the organisation - and even by business partners and associates.
Companies are able to rent their "services" (business functions) to other organisations, opening the door to a whole new, unexplored world of opportunity.
However, Web services should not be considered in isolation in terms of business verticals - and the IT functions supporting the business verticals. Instead, Web services should be looked at from a business function perspective and solutions designed accordingly to form the basis of an organisation`s services-oriented architecture.
If implemented in this manner, Web services will be able to dynamically handle integration issues - whether at system or data level.
What`s more, these Web services solutions will be immensely powerful in other areas too; security is a prime example.
In a Web services environment, security is addressed at a very low level -component level - within the organisation`s IT infrastructure. This makes it extremely difficult for hackers or anyone with malicious intent, from within or outside the organisation, to abuse systems.
The experts have not gone so far as to label Web services as the universal security panacea, but unlike an integrated systems platform from the 1990s, it will be far more difficult and complex to breach.
Open future
Web services are already impacting on the architecture of the new generation of business solutions. Designers are increasingly following the Web services dictum of focusing on the user - and his or her immediate needs.
They are addressing the most important aspect of business - adding value and the need for any IT purchase to have a return on investment and a positive implication for the "bottom line".
These goals are almost automatically achieved by the open standards that are fully endorsed in the Web services environment.
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