EAI and ERP

Need for Integration

SCM/CRM

D/WERP

Approaches to integration:

Integration of ERP with SCM and CRM is required at following levels:

Transaction level

Management control level

Decision analysis level

Strategic planning level

Approaches to integration:

For example, SCM & ERP integration can be achieved by:

By identifying the objects which are exchanged (e.g. BOM’s routings, inventory levels, customer orders, PO, etc.)

By data exchange model which specifies how the flow of data and information between systems is organized

Approaches to integration:

Most of these applications provide macro language for this purpose. So an SCM and CRM solution should:

1. Match data items from ERP system and structure it.2. Provide import/export formats (e.g. ASCII format with

fixed field size)

Approaches to integration:

Further, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) products/tools can be applied for integration of these systems.

EAI acts as an glue between ERP, CRM, SCM, Data Warehouse and establish a rapid integration framework.

EAI

ERP CRM

SCM DW

Vendor

Customer

EAI

What is EAI

EAI can be defined as:

Application independent,

Business process-oriented software that integrates the applications of the enterprise, or several enterprises.

Structure of EAI ToolsEAI tools are comprised of:

process management,

application interface,

transformation, and

messaging service

necessary to facilitate end-to-end application integration both internally and externally to the enterprise.

EAI

Generally there is 4 different types of EAI :

Data-level,

Application program interface-level,

Method-level and

User interface-level

EAI

Data Level EAI

Data-level EAI is the process as well as techniques and technology to move data between data stores.

i.e. simply extracting information from one database, perhaps processing that information as needed (e.g., transformation) and updating that information in another database.

A typical EAI-enabled enterprise this may include as many as a hundred databases and several thousand tables.

API Level EAI

Application program interface level EAI refers to the practice of using interfaces offered by packaged applications.

Developers leverage these interfaces to access both business processes and simple information.

It enables the developers are able to tie many applications together allowing them to share business logic and information.

EAI

Method-level EAI is simply the sharing of common business logic (or method) that may exist within the enterprise.

For instance, the method of updating a customer record may be accessed from any number of applications, and applications may access each other's methods without having to rewrite each method within the respective application.

EAI

In user interface-level EAI, architects and developers are able to tie applications together by having user interfaces as a common point of integration.

For example, mainframe applications that do not provide database nor business process level access may be accessed through the user interface of the ERP application.

This process uses windows and menus to get at the relevant data that needs to be extracted and moved to other applications and data stores.

EAI Architecture

Generally, there are following four major layers in EAI architecture

EAI Architecture

Business process represents sequences of business events and activities, each of which may be implemented under the control of either personnel or software. It support ranges from simple workflow management to complex business process automation.

Business components are logical elements without an understanding of the underlying technical infrastructure. Components manipulate data, and have to resolve the technical incompatibilities between the underlying applications.

E.g. Data transformation services

Adapters services, etc.

EAI Architecture

Messaging: A messaging backbone is the foundation of an EAI framework. This backbone transports messages between resources, reconciling network and protocol differences.

It allows applications to share information with the outside world by sending and receiving messages. It adds quality-of-service options to message delivery, such as security and queuing.

The messaging services should ideally support both synchronous and asynchronous messaging.

EAI Architecture

Transport: Each of the major products offers some form of native transport, a method of communicating messages.

It may be synchronous or asynchronous, with subcategories such as:

RPC,

request/reply, and

publish/subscribe.

EAI Architecture

System Support facilitates:

multi-threading,

management and monitoring,

multi processing,

load balancing,

fault tolerance,

public key encryption,

As part of the core architecture, they should be accessible to all components. The product and its implementations come to have a high degree of uniformity, evidenced by a standard API, and upgrades are easier.

Enterprise integration of i2 technologies

PlanningSub-system

SCM

CustomerManagementSub-system

CRM

Design SourceSub-system

SRM

ERPSub-system

(SAP)

ODS Explore

Role based Common User Interface

LegacySub-system

(OS390)

ETL-Bulk Data Transfer (back) Bus

Common Integration Services

…

TransactionalPlatform

Enterprise Messaging (front) Bus

EAI Architecture

The above framework is an abstraction on top of many underlying integration platforms such as web methods, informatica etc.

It is a set of services enabling enterprise applications to participate in integrated environment

List of services: communication, logging, monitoring, data transformation, workflow design & runtime, single sign-on, etc.

Complete integration framework to interact with any i2 product or 3rd party system.

It is specifying common meta-data format

Agilent Technologies EAI Model

Service & SupportService

& SupporteBusinesseBusinessOrder

GenerationOrder Generation

Order FulfillmentOrder

Fulfillment

Information Management

Legacy Systems

Oracle Apps

HRFinanceReference Systems

Product

Customer

Supplier

Price

Company Information

PeopleSoftSAP/Oracle

Data Warehousing

Reporting

Standard Base Business Object Definitions

Intranet Content

FunctionalApplications

Merging Companies’ ApplicationsMerging Companies’

Applications

Packaged, Legacy

Canonical Model

EAI vendorsEA Vendor Market share

(%)IBM 12Neon 10.8Mercater 10TIBCO 9.1Sun 6.4BEA Systems 5.1STC 4.4Vitria 3.9Active 3.7Extricity 3.0