Enterprise application integration: Time to market imperative driving investment in EAI

The ability to see reality as it actually is…and not as it might be…and then respond swiftly in an appropriate manner has elevated the importance of enterprise application integration (EAI) initiatives for businesses today. Organizations in financial services, healthcare, manufacturing – even government – are all wrestling today with how to capture transactions and other business critical data in real-time, correlate information across applications to establish a clear vision of how current developments are affecting the enterprise, and then take action that exploits market opportunities and deflects competitive threats.

IT architects and managers are thus being asked to address these urgent requirements of visibility and agility while managing layer upon layer of legacy systems that may or may not interoperate with any degree of simplicity. For many EAI is providing an important part of the answer.

“Changes and additions of features to existing systems over successive generations of system development have introduced greater complexity to enterprise systems,” explains IBM’s Leif Davidsen, Application and Integration Middleware Software division. “This has also contributed to greater costs and increased risks of failure for many organizations. That is why we are seeing so much intense interest in enterprise application integration. ”

According to analysts at Wintergreen Research, there is growing evidence that IT managers are building more adaptive, agile IT infrastructure when they use enterprise application integration (EAI) tools to reduce costs and manage the complexity of heterogeneous systems. As a result, they estimate that the worldwide EAI software markets will reach $11.5 billion a year by 2013 (up from $4.6 billion in 2006).

The essential business objectives of enterprise application integration are to connect systems across horizontal business processes, and integrate applications, business services, and business partners. A model EAI solution focuses on connecting applications together with the right communications and server infrastructure as well as the right business process capabilities to give IT and enterprise leaders the ability to create composite applications that meet new flexible and dynamic business needs. A well-engineered EAI solution also makes maximum re-use of existing applications and resources without requiring extensive rework. The solution’s integration and security characteristics are tailored to the business needs of the enterprise, and it also provides enterprise leaders with tools for monitoring and maintaining system performance through the EAI solution rather than impacting the applications themselves.

The most critical success factor in successfully implementing an EAI solution is to ensure the right alignment between business and IT. Enterprise leaders should systematically consider what mix of technology their particular integration project needs.

“For example, if what an enterprise project really needs is to connect together standards-based Web services, EAI can minimize the complexity of the task by providing tools focused on meeting those standards,” says IBM’s Davidsen.

Successful EAI deployments often start small with an initial pilot project. But problems in scaling that success to an enterprise-wide transformation can cause a stumble. Experience has shown that a critical success factor for large-scale EAI deployment is to put thoughtful focus on IT architecture. Accordingly, an assessment of architectural health, design and capacity, along with a look at technology, performance, and security can forestall growing pains. Other best practices include strengthening governance, IT skills, and culture.

But when these key factors are managed effectively enterprise application integration delivers significant business benefits by leveraging the investment in IT that directly improves the bottom line.

“Implementing an EAI solution reduces complexity—giving enterprises more time, people, and resources to focus on core business processes and innovation. Enterprise leaders can harness EAI’s ability to affect even greater control over business processes to precisely adjust overall enterprise performance,” says Davidsen.

To learn how IBM can assist you with your EAI efforts please contact IBM.