Architectures and technologies for enterprise application integration

Architects are faced with the problem of building enterprise scale information systems, with streamlined, automated internal business processes and Web-enabled business functions, all across multiple legacy applications. The underlying architectures for such systems are embodied in a range of diverse products known as enterprise application integration (EAI) technologies. In this paper, we highlight some of the major problems, approaches and issues in designing EAI architectures and selecting appropriate supporting technology. The tutorial presents a range of the common architectural patterns frequently used for EAI applications. It also explains service-oriented architectures as the current best practice architectural framework for EAI. It then describes the state-or-the-art in EAI technologies that support these architectural styles, and discusses some of the key design trade-offs involved when selecting an appropriate integration technology (including buy versus build decisions).