The Integration Life Cycle for Packaged Integration Processes

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Picking up where enterprise applications leave off, integration projects create whole business processes or logical views that are beyond the scope of any individual system. In an era where technology projects are expected to deliver tangible ROI, integration projects have logical appeal because they leverage IT assets that are already in place. And thanks to the legacy of 1990s-style reengineering, there is a huge base of standalone or poorly connected systems from which to work.

The challenge, of course, is that until recently integration has proven a black hole for IT budgets and deliverables. Traditionally extremely labor-intensive, integration projects have had few alternatives to the development and maintenance of custom point-to-point interfaces. In the last five years, software vendors have responded with a variety of new integration solutions, ranging from message brokers to database federation, enterprise service busses, portals, and business process integration.

One of the fastest growing approaches to integration is for vendors to pre-package business processes that bolt atop existing systems. Described by Gartner Group as "packaged integrating processes" (PIPs), these solutions fuse related business activities -- such as the engineering and financial bills of material -- by pre-building a standard process bridging specific applications, architected to be technologically agnostic. Capitalizing on its background as OEM of "adapters" for enterprise vendors such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Siebel, Sierra Atlantic has become one of the fastest growing providers of packaged integrating processes.

For customers, packaged processes promise all the benefits of packaged software, replacing custom integration with technology that is configurable, vendor-supported, upgradeable and stable. However, as with any enterprise application project, the benefits result only if packaged processes are implemented properly. That requires vendors and customers to understand the integration process itself.

Based on extensive interviews with Sierra Atlantic practice leads and customers, onStrategies identified the critical steps necessary for delivering packaged integrations. Key conclusions include:

• The scope of packaged integration projects is more finite and incremental in nature. Organizations should proceed tactically, targeting specific points of pain.
• Business leads must have broader views of how business processes transcend application boundaries.
• Technical leads should be intimately familiar with the integration and transformation solutions, and with the APIs exposed by target applications.

Packaged processes are powerful tools that can simplify and reduce the cost of enterprise application integration, if chosen, planned, and deployed properly. By identifying the steps and players involved, the path is cleared for developing best practices that in the long run reduce costs and improve rate of return from packaged integration.