Business processes need to be changed or extended frequently and in a short period of time.
This influences information systems:
- The subsystem needs to be integrated very well
- Communication with systems outside of the own enterprise gets more important
- Often the data communication mechanisms must support near-time communication or even work like direct function calls
- The technologies and data structures used by the different applications are very heterogeneous.
The term EAI(Enterprise Application Integration) is used as a summary for all these topics.
The solution is a flexible middleware, which interconnects all relevant external and
internal systems. A single instance realizes a controlled and optimized interaction
between all systems. From the technical point of view, only one interface is necessary between each system
and the central instance. Direct interfaces between individual systems are not necessary anymore.
The number of the interfaces decreases considerably and concomitantly also the costs for
maintenance and change processes.