B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

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Enterprise Portal
Application
Financial System
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) 99
ERP System
SCM System
Figure 4.2. — The enterprise maze
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Databases
Legacy System
The segmentation of information systems was exacerbated with the
introduction of commercial off-the-shelf applications such as ERP and
CRM. Early on, these systems were designed as self-contained 'blackbox'
systems with little or no means for accessing internal data or
processes. Though many of these applications now provide better access
to their underlying data and business logic, integrating these systems
with other systems within the enterprise is still a challenge.
Each node in Figure 4.2 maintains its own data, which may be
shared among the nodes. Sharing of this data has been typically
accomplished using data transfer methods including batch processes and
data import/export jobs. Since the data of one node is not available in
real-time to other nodes, the latter cannot analyze and make decisions
while a transaction is being processed at the former. This is one of the
major factors that justify EAI. In fact, the very origin of EAI can be
linked to the need for providing a full duplex, bi-directional solution to
share seamlessly and exchange data between ERP, CRM, SCM, databases,
data warehouses and other important internal systems within the company
(see Figure 4.3).