Event Summary
Two ERP vendors recently signed agreements to resell integration software from
Enterprise Applications Integration vendors. PeopleSoft has agreed to standardize
on New Era of Network, Inc.'s (NEON) data migration product as the preferred
integration tool and deploy the product to customers in its 30 implementation
centers throughout North America. PeopleSoft will also resell the NEON product
directly to customers for data conversion and ongoing data interfacing from
PeopleSoft to other in-house applications. Lawson Software is reselling TSI
Software's Mercator integration tools to provide XML integration for its collaborative
e-Business applications.
Market
Impact
Tools for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) are becoming more important
as companies continue to replace large mainframe systems with smaller, more
specialized applications. These tools must be flexible to join software applications
from multiple vendors that have different variation in purpose and platforms.
The rapid consolidation of vendors in the enterprise application marketplace
will have little effect on reducing the number of interfaces required for large
IT implementations that span multiple business units. Each year, new applications
appear on the horizon that are designed to complement existing applications
by automating peripheral processes or enhancing functionality already included.
Ultimately, organizations will need to combine these applications seamlessly
for maximum benefit. Customer relationship management, alert messaging, and
data mining are just a few recent examples. To stay competitive among the growing
number of players in the marketplace, EAI vendors will need to explore innovative
development approaches for creating conduits that join various applications
in their many combinations. Partnerships like those of PeopleSoft and Lawson
are a step in the right direction.
User
Recommendations
While partnerships such as those mentioned above can save time in getting information
about a prospective integration tool, users should not select an integration
package based solely on the advice of an ERP or supply chain management partner
vendor. Most integration tools have the capability to join data from different
packages, even if they do not maintain joint marketing agreements. The differentiating
factors lie in the methods by which the integration occurs. Packages for data
conversion and transfer should be selected based on several factors, including:
-
Cleansing: Although the data in a legacy mainframe
may have worked fine for the last twenty years, the new application may
not be able to make sense of its conventions. For instance, the mainframe
may make use of global settings that allow its sub-programs to leave out
parts of the data, such as facility codes or two-digit century fields for
dates. Because of extensive customization, mainframes are rarely amenable
to a direct data load by even advanced EAI tools, and a good package will
allow the project team to at least identify incompatibilities and suggest
alternatives for conversion.
-
Transformation:
Whether the enterprise application needs to communicate data to another
in-house application, an application at another facility, or a business-to-business
marketplace portal, a central issue concerns how the integration tool maps
data in one application to another. In addition, the tool should offer programmers
the flexibility to construct custom data mapping rules with a high level
of complexity.
-
Ease-of-use:
Companies frequently find that using in-house resources helps keep project
costs down. The EAI tool should be easy to learn with a minimum of training.
This also ensures that knowledgeable resources stay around after the implementation
phase to maintain the interfaces and upgrade them to communicate with new
product releases and installations.