AS USERS IMPLEMENT e-business infrastructures and pull their data and applications into that fold, it is becoming increasingly clear that EAI (enterprise application integration) was not built with real-time e-commerce transactions in mind.
Meanwhile, e-commerce Web sites, digital exchanges, and online business-to-business marketplaces all demand real-time data integration as well as a unified face to the Web. The venues for this kind of integration are increasing not only in number but also in business value.
"As companies move toward e-commerce, business needs change, and the data needs to be made accessible accordingly," says Amy Hedrick, an analyst at Boston-based consultancy AMR Research.
To that end, a new class of products, referred to as IDI (Internet data integration) solutions, is coming to market, taking the notion of application and data integration a step beyond EAI products and into the realm of real-time e-business.
Earlier this month, for instance, Cerebellum Software in Pittsburgh announced new versions of Portal Integrator and eCom Integrator, which can bring together a variety of data sources and direct that combined data stream onto the Web.
Earlier this month, Information Builders spun off a new subsidiary, iWay Software, which focuses strictly on integrating data sources and presenting them on the Web.
A variety of other vendors, including IBM, Compaq, Merant, Metagon, and Enterworks, to name a few, are providing software that aims to solve the same basic problem.
"E-business integration is about linking new, automated systems with older, legacy systems, because the legacy systems can be necessary to fulfill users' needs," says John Senor, president of iWay in New York.
The fundamental difference between IDI and EAI is that the new breed is built for real-time e-commerce transactions with partners and customers, both inside and outside the firewall.
EAI products, on the other hand, are not really built for extending data beyond the firewall, AMR's Hedrick explains. As a result, EAI as a technology is not well-equipped to handle security issues, routing, or Internet standards and protocols, she says. Furthermore, the IDI solutions were built to span both e-business and the physical world of commerce.
One customer subscribing to this new breed of far-flung integration is Target, a $40 billion company which implemented Zero Latency Enterprise (ZLE), an integration program spearheaded by Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner and Houston-based Compaq Computer.
The ZLE effort is a rules-based system described as "EAI on steroids" by one Compaq official.
"[ZLE] is the cornerstone of an e-business environment. To transport data across our various databases gives us both speed and accuracy," says Deb Bauman, vice president of development for Target Direct and Target Financial Services in Minneapolis.
The system consolidates existing data, makes it accessible, and allows Target to recognize a customer across different channels -- online and in physical stores -- and personalize accordingly.
"Let's say we have a customer who has an excellent credit rating with us and has a Target card, and they have problems with a check at one of our Marshall Fields stores," Bauman explains.
"Let's say they missed a payment on their Marshall Fields card but never missed a payment with their Target card. [With ZLE] we can bypass our orddinary rules and accept their payment at the Marshall Fields," Bauman says.
Analysts say that IDI products will not replace EAI but rather they will find a home alongside EAI in corporate networks. Nor are established integration vendors such as BEA Systems, Tibco Software, or webMethods diminishing, analysts say. Each company has partnered or brought to market products aimed at offering an end-to-end solution as well.
"The two are complementary technologies," says Todd Olson, CTO of Cerebellum. "It's conceivable that one of our software's requests would trigger something in the EAI system." The biggest drawback moving forward is that as a technology, EAI is still relatively young itself, points out AMR's Hedrick.
"I'm not sure we really pushed the EAI tools to the limit. Very few enterprises have integrated all their applications, so we don't know how scalable they are or how scalable [the newer integration] tools will need to be," Hedrick says.
