Enterprise Integration 101

Integration CoreDon’t wait to adopt. The fittest adapt

Don’t wait to adopt. The fittest adapt

SAP Inside Track NL

Integration core(Resistance is futile)

Martijn Linssen M.A.26 November 2011 – version 1.0


10-04-2023

Agenda

What is Integration Which problems does it solve

History of Integration How have problems been solved

Future of Integration How can problems stay solved

Of course, if you tackle a problem better and / or earlier than the competition, it’s called a business benefit …

Resistance is futile

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What is Integration?

Fitting (not ramming) the round red peg into the square blue hole

… good luck with that

However, this has been done, and proven, outside IT


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What can Integration be compared to?

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Overcoming language barriers

… not always that successful


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The Integration problem: your place or mine?

We’re all hungry, but who gets to be the cook? Because every one will have to finish his plate – like it or not

Not just a technical issue, but also a “political” one


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The Integration trade-off: I speak yours if you speak mine

Everyone must learn foreign languages

Very costly, very time-consuming Impossible to become fluent in all, let alone a few No common single language


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The Integration compromise: let’s speak a common language

Everyone must learn only one foreign language

Slightly less costly, less time-consuming Possible to become fluent in one language One common single language


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The Integration solution: let’s hire an interpreter

No one must learn a foreign language

Least costly, least time-consuming One common single language Perfect fit-for-purpose for all Proven “technology”: European Parliament


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European Parliament

With currently 23 languages in the EP, there are 506 (23 x 22) possible combinations That would be the integration trade-off in the flesh

So, they use 3 middle languages: English, French, German (It’s that hard to be fluent in only two languages)

Currently, 750 members serve for 5 years That means that on average

12.5 people per month getreplaced – seamlessly

Can your IT landscape handle1.67% application replacementsevery single month?


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The first solution: the ultimate trade-off

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Point-to-point interfacing Hard-coupled, synchronous “Build once, modify never” Enterprise effort: 0. App effort: n - 1

For every connected application N, one will have to support N minus 1 non-native interfaces. This is killing if your landscape grows, or has to change (think upgrades)


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“Enterprise Application Integration” Loosely-coupled, asynchronous Integration as a profession Enterprise effort: n2. App effort: 0

The second solution: use the tools, Luke

For every connected application N, one will have to support 0 non-native interfaces. Transformation is done at a central hub, by an Integration Broker


Enterprise Service Bus / Service Oriented Architecture Hard-coupled, synchronous Point-to-point connection to the Bus Enterprise effort: 0. App effort: n

The third solution: architects’ mistake

For every connected application N, one will have to support N non-native interfaces. This is killing if you replace an application or introduce a new one, or simply upgrade


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Three solutions. Did any of them solve anything?

Point-to-point was okay but couldn’t scale. It still works for (very) small IT departments

EAI was a great follow-up. Even introduced canonical model and messages, but the introduction of XML lowered the barrier so much that Integration quickly degraded from a profession to a pastime

As a result, ESB got introduced and architects promoted it. At about the same time SOA saw the light, and now most (semi-)governments enforce very costly XML over HTTP

And then… Google refuses to use XML, and Twitter and Facebook deprecate it in favour of JSON

Hey – but XML was the language of the future!

So maybe resistance wasn’t that futile after all?


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Picture yourself in an application’s place – from a business PoV

Every single application in your landscape is carefully hand-picked and selected. You could compare each of them to Olympic athletes, specialised to perfection

Highly single-minded, excelling at only one thing, they are at best average at most everything else

But, you want to immediately replace them with the next best one whenever needed: there is no time-to-market


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Any (leading) system needs to collaborate with(in) any existing IT-landscape, whether internal or external

Any IT-landscape is diverse, and heterogeneous- and will always be. It’s an organic life-form initself

Evolution dictates that there will always be exceptions, differentiations. If a group becomes too large, individuals will arise out of it, forming new groups: standardisation never lasts long. Growth means change

Application lifecycles get shorter every day. Spending time on development is a necessity, but on Integration?

There is no business sense in expecting other organisations and applications to adopt; it is far more effective to make yourself adaptable

The Big Picture


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Adaptive Integrated Enterprise Fully de-coupled, asynchronous Integration as a profession Enterprise effort: n2. App effort: 0

The real solution: facilitated canonical

For every connected application N, one will have to support 0 non-native interfaces. Transformation is done at a central hub into one common language


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One Goal, One Vision

The typical future-proof IT landscape

Cloud(SaaS)

SocialMedia

B2B

SAP Specials

Mobile

B2C

Big Data

External Push

External Pull

External Applications

Internal Applications


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This is a plug-and-play Enterprise as the Business would like to have. Not much to assimilate here, really

Roadmap for the next 5 years (generalised)

JSONoverFTP

JSONover

HTTP

EDIFACTover

EDIINT

iDocoverMQ

Anyoverany

AnyOver

HSPA/WCDMA

XMLover

HTTP

In-memory


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One last word to the wise

SOAP, WSDL, REST, W3C – all of those haven’t been mentioned. Nor need they be: they’re just narrow-minded opinions

If you want to restrict yourself, your company and your customers and partners by limiting choices to either one of those, go ahead and do so – but try making a solid business case for that first, shall we?

There is no one-size-fits-all, there are no Borg – well maybe there are, but they can be ignored. Certainly not feared

You could debate the value of apples over oranges, but could you really, if this is the big picture?


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http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Locutus_of_Borg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD4roXEY8hk http://castleawesome.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-france-day-fre

nchies.html http://ruisvis.nl/foto.html http://www.jointhestylehighclub.com/tag/german-stereotypes/ http://library.aliyev-heritage.org/en/7231101.html http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blanka_Vlasic_ISTAF_20

08.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_man_replace_a_mai

n_landing_gear_tire_of_a_plane.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gould_John_Duckbilled_Platypus

_1845-1863.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tiktaalik_roseae_life_restor.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Boqueria.JPG

Image sources


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http://castleawesome.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-france-day-frenchies.html




http://ruisvis.nl/foto.html

http://www.jointhestylehighclub.com/tag/german-stereotypes/

http://library.aliyev-heritage.org/en/7231101.html

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blanka_Vlasic_ISTAF_2008.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blanka_Vlasic_ISTAF_2008.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_man_replace_a_main_landing_gear_tire_of_a_plane.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_man_replace_a_main_landing_gear_tire_of_a_plane.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gould_John_Duckbilled_Platypus_1845-1863.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gould_John_Duckbilled_Platypus_1845-1863.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tiktaalik_roseae_life_restor.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Boqueria.JPG



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