Next Generation Application Integration: From Simple Information to Web Services

Preface

In the last several years, application integration, at least the notion of it, has worked its way into most information technology departments. This has been driven by a number of emerging developments, including the need to expose information found in existing systems to the Web, the need to participate in electronic marketplaces, the need to integrate their supply chain, and most importantly, the need for their existing enterprise systems to finally share information and common processes.

By now we know that application integration is important; there is not much need for me to restate that here. What is not as well understood is the amount of planning and coordination that needs to occur in order to pull off application integration today, ...