SAP Integration Using Enterprise Application Integration Software

Over the past decade, worldwide enterprises have invested around $300 billion on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations [1]. An ERP system can provide accounting-oriented information services for handling customer orders. It normally requires a middleware layer to integrate with other back-end data sources and with the front-end applications such as web browsers. Developing the middleware from scratch tends to be a one-time solution that poses support discontinuation concern. On the other hand, commercial off-the-shelf Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) systems generally provide many packaged components that can shorten the middleware development cycle and ease subsequent maintenance efforts. In this paper, we present our experience in practicing one such EAI software, the IBM CrossWorlds, to integrate SAP, a leading ERP system in global market share, with the front-end web-based stores and operational databases.