ColdFusion and Big Iron Presented by: Robi Sen

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Introduction Robi Sen – CIO of granularity information architecture inc., – Teratech/Granularity Enterprisegroup.granularity.com

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Buzzwords XML, XML/EDI, XSLT, DTD, SCHEME, WSDL, UDDI, XMI, SOAP, WebServices, BizTalk, ebXML, MidFrame, MainFrame,

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved The Real Problem commerce \Com"merce\, n. Note: (Formerly accented on the second syllable.) [F. commerce, L. commercium; com- + merx, mercis, merchandise. See Merchant.] 1. The exchange or buying and selling of commodities; esp. the exchange of merchandise, on a large scale, between different places or communities; extended trade or traffic.Merchant 2. Social intercourse; the dealings of one person or class in society with another; familiarity.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Why would you want to connect to a mainframe Conserve huge Investment Mission Critical (I.e. to hard to migrate due to dependencies) Information and technology Investment Proprietary and custom irreplaceable applications (I.e. the software is to hard to migrate) Performance (some midframe and mainframe systems offer scalability that is unmatched in modern low end clustered server offer)

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Typical problem

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Example Of a Integrated E-business

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Major Problems at present with e-Commerce 1. Lack of systems integration inside corporations. 2. Inability to exchange information between corporations seamlessly. 3. Inability to access or integrate with other business.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Typical Solution paths Data level integration Application level integration Method level integration User Interface integration

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Data Level Integration is the process of moving data between various data sources. In its most simple of forms, this is the exchange of data between two different databases to give the illusion of one centralized data source. In its more complex incarnations, it may include the retrieval of data from dozens of data sources (not just databases but perhaps also flat files, data streams, XML files, etc.) and the transformation of complex of data and complex business logic before commitment to, perhaps, even more data sources.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Strengths Ease of implementation Industry experience and knowledge (I.e. lots of people have done this and do this so you have resources) Few draw backs

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Data Level Integration Sometimes impossible with some systems (usually very old Legacy Systems) With messaging systems some times performance issues

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Application level Integration Refers to the usage of various interfaces exposed by the developers of custom or packaged application that take the form of a product’s API. Application Interface Level EAI allows developers to not only exchange data but also access to processes and or functions of other applications they are integrating with This type of EAI is most common with ERP systems such as SAP, PEOPLESOFT and or BAAN but is generally not used in environments where many applications and or systems must be integrated.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Strengths Best performance Greatest Functional possibilities Occasionally simplest approach especially with more modern systems

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Weaknesses Complexity Coupling is some times to “tight” Great performance but some times unable to scale massively especially in distributed environs (often people MIX app level and Data level integration at this point)

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Method Level Can be thought of allowing any application in the enterprise access to business logic that exists anywhere else in the enterprise. Generally this takes the form of some sort of distributed object based system. For example a Java EJB, which controls user access levels, may be used by a variety of applications within an enterprise.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Strengths Useful with newer application s and allows distributed access to logic from many systems (uselly via CORBA, COM, RMI)

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Weakness Usually only possible with newer applications Massive planning and IT investment Complexity

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved UI Integration this method of EAI is considered by many to be too antiquated for serious consideration but sometimes it is the only way to exchange information between archaic or overly proprietary systems. This method is often called “screen scraping” owing to the idea that the developers use the various systems User Interfaces as a common point of integration and programmatically step through various screens, filling them out or retrieving data from them as they go. For a variety of reasons this is usually a last ditch resort since this method is often awkward, unreliable, and poorly scaleable.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Strengths Products make this approach easy Some times your only option especially with antiquated systems

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Weakness Slow Not very robust Not Very scalable Should be thought of as a last resort Period

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Solutions Figure 2: This diagram shows the simplicity of connecting to a ERP through ODBC but does not convey the limited functionality that is accessible through most ERP’s ODBC interfaces.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Solutions This diagram shows how a Messaging server can be used to loosely couple numerous different system via a network

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved XML: 3 simple concepts DATA The actual content and information Structure The relations of data within the document Display How the data should be presented to the target

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Web Services A old idea Like RPC Possibility of creating web orbs Single greatest usage - EAI

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Users can define their own tags XML Technology at a Glance SGML XML HTML Well Formed Document: Aston Martin DB6 87 Dark Green DTD: Document Type Definition <!DOCTYPE Auto [ <!ELEMENT Auto (Make, Model, Year, Color, Price)> ]> The tags indicate the meaning of the marked sections

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved XSLT XSLT allows developers to transform almost any source of text and even binary data into almost any other text or binary data.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Now it gets complex: The Stack

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved A solution - ebXML

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Solutions Currently no one vendor can do it all

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Start simple, grow complex XML is XML! What you start with today does not limit you from participating in the standards of tomorrow. XML is relatively cheap XML adoption can be done somewhat piecemeal.

Copyright 2001 Granularity Information Architecture All Rights Reserved Selection of Resources The XML/edi Group OASIS non-profit initiative – XML.org IBM Web Services X12 TMWG – Repository RFI ebXML- W3C – Granularity - XML.com – XML information for ColdFusion – xml.granularity.com Integration software from Vitria.com - Integration software from Redix -