Managing Information Access to an Enterprise Information System Using J2EE and Services Oriented Architecture

10 Managing Information Access to an EIS Using J2EE and Services Oriented Architecture

2.1 Integrating a remote EIS

Most companies today have some sort of a back-end EIS that processes

business transactions and maintains business data in a database. Examples of a

corporate EIS are:

򐂰 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems (for example, SAP)

򐂰 A CICS and IMS system running business transactions

򐂰 A corporate database running SQL stored procedures

򐂰 A corporate database storing company data

򐂰 A combination of some or all of these scenarios

To further complicate the integration for architects and designers, any or all of the

enterprise information systems can be either:

򐂰 Remote

The back-end system is geographically remote to the application or business

processes integrating with the back-end system. An example of such a

scenario is where an application server is running an application in Minsk,

Belarus, and the back-end system that processes the transactions is in

Johannesburg, South Africa. In this scenario, where a back-end system is

remote to an application or business process, the back-end typically would be

accessed over a wide area network (WAN) or over the Internet.

򐂰 Local

The back-end system is located on the same local area network (LAN) as the

application or business processes.

򐂰 External

A remote back-end system where an application or business process must

integrate with an external company’s back-end system. An example of this

scenario would be an external company that provides a stock portfolio

analysis service.

Why is it so difficult for IT developers and project teams to integrate with

back-end systems? From a conceptual point of view, you can architecturally

model two systems with defined boundaries, layers, and interfaces. So,

conceptually a Web application that is running a company’s call center should be

able to integrate with its back-end system effortlessly, correct?

Well, conceptually, yes. However, if you analyze the two systems, you would find

that the company’s call center was implemented using a proprietary language or

tool set, while the back-end was implemented with another language (for

example CICS / COBOL). There are almost an infinite amount of EIS integration

scenarios.