ISSN 2348-1196 (print) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology Research ISSN 2348-120X (online) Vol. 10, Issue 2, pp: (50-54), Month: April - June 2022, Available at: www.researchpublish.com
Evolution of Enterprise Application Integration Technologies Afnan Alawami1 12
Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6536509 Published Date: 10-May-2022
Abstract: IT infrastructure can have a wide range of diverse technologies, platforms and applications that need to interoperate to serve business goals. Enterprise Application integration (EAI) which can be defined as “the enablement of data sharing between heterogenous information systems within one enterprise” is becoming more and more essential to enterprises as it streamlines business processes, ensures the integrity between different systems, reduces labour cost and minimizes human errors. This paper presents the different generations of enterprise applications integration technologies that evolved over the past 30 years to link different IT enabled solutions together. The paper covers the architectural features and challenges associated with each generation of Enterprise Application Integration [EAI]. Keywords: Enterprise Application Integration, Middleware, Integration Platform as a Service.
I. INTRODUCTION One of the most important objectives of IT departments is to seamline business processes and ensure that IT backbone is powerful enough to support these objectives. The fact that IT infrastructure runs a verity of diverse technologies, platforms and systems that may involve legacy systems, ERP solutions, and cloud-based systems, makes such goal hard to achieve, especially with the rapid growth of information technologies and non-stop business growth that rely heavily on Information Technology. IT organizations are required to merge the different IT components and solutions together to form a solid infrastructure that enables easy sharing of data and information across different systems in a seamless fashion. The hidden layer allows interoperability between different technologies is Enterprise Application integration (EAI). EAI links all IT solutions and platforms in a seamless manner and enables systems that runs on different platforms and uses different programming languages to communicate with one another and syncs the information in real-time to improve productivity and ensures information integrity. The EAI concept evolved from being about data integration, where the focus was on data format, to system integration, where heterogenous systems interface with each other and exchange data. The latter further evolved into business processes integration, when organization realized the need for business processes to be controlled, modelled and interoperate with each other [15]. EAI can automate business processes and allow interoperation between them. When an event happened in one system, EAI can automate the execution of consequent events in different systems which facilitate complex business processes [3]. EAI benefits to businesses can be summarized as follows: [10] ● It helps to streamline business processes that are carried out across different functions of common businesses such as supply chain, human resources and marking. ● It helps in sharing data with vendors and business partners.
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