Interview With Lekha Rao, EDS

Information Builders continues to enrich its relationship with EDS on several fronts. In addition to playing a key role in the EDS Supply Chain Competency Centers, profiled in our last issue, EDS recently has purchased several Information Builders products for internal use. WebFOCUS is being used to publish management reports on the corporate intranet, and SnapPACK Data Migrator is being brought in-house to streamline the implementation of SAP R/3 applications.

Meanwhile, in the EDS management consulting practice, innovators such as Lekha Rao continue to push the envelope with their innovative use of Information Builders products. As manager of the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) service practice within the EDS E.solutions organization, Rao has helped piece together e-commerce systems. Information Builders recently interviewed Ms. Rao to gather her perceptions on the importance of EAI technologies in today's dynamic business environment.

IB Magazine – What exactly is Enterprise Application Integration?

Rao – EAI looks at the enterprise the way a city planner looks at a city. There are multiple buildings of varying ages and designs, but the city needs to put an infrastructure in place to serve them all. Similarly, in the business world, information is held by many diverse systems, on different platforms, in various locations. EAI uses a variety of integration technologies based on the need to share information and solve enterprise business process problems across geography, heterogeneous applications, and infrastructure environments.

IB Magazine – So EAI covers a very broad cross section of technology.

Rao – Yes. EAI becomes important whenever multiple systems must be able to function collaboratively. EAI can be used for supply chain integration, procurement, data warehousing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and electronic business. EAI also allows multiple companies to collaborate to solve common business problems. Key technologies include Web-based search engines, distributed object/component frameworks, and different kinds of data access middleware, such as Information Builders' EDA.

IB Magazine – Are you able to reuse certain aspects of EAI technology from one engagement to the next?

Rao – EAI solutions reduce the current morass of point-to-point integration solutions. Conceptually, we create a general integration layer that several applications can use. EDS is specifically interested in Information Builders' use of the eXtensible Markup language (XML) for electronic business systems. It simplifies how data is represented, both inside an organization and in a business-to-business setting. XML gives us a flexible way to provide self-describing data so consumers and suppliers of the data can more easily do business.

These and other EAI technologies present the extended enterprise with a seamless view of information. This consolidated view enables us to more easily move and share data, use the data to form business intelligence, and provide the flexibility to react quickly to changes in the business landscape.

IB Magazine – EDS talks a lot about the "extended enterprise." Can you explain just what that is and how EAI technology comes into play?

Rao – The notion of the "extended enterprise" has been around for several years. In the past, building an extended enterprise meant automating business functions and sharing data within a company. Today, it means moving and sharing information across corporate boundaries-between companies and around the world. The extended enterprise frequently comes into play in the context of developing digital supply chains or what we call E.communities.

IB Magazine – How does middleware technology fit into this context?

Rao – EAI uses middleware as a mechanism to integrate existing IT resources with new technical solutions. Some of the leading types of middleware include data access, data transformation, message-oriented brokering, object request brokers, transaction processing, and component-based gateways. These technologies enable the push-pull of information among systems to create a composite view.

IB Magazine – How have EAI technologies changed in recent years?

Rao – The term "integration" has been around for a long time. Traditionally, it meant building an application, putting it on a hardware platform, deploying the application, packaging it, and shipping it for one system. Integration used to imply point-to-point exchanges. Today's integration approach of many-to-many creates a robust infrastructure composed of products and technologies.

IB Magazine – How are changes in the overall IT landscape dictating a need for EAI technology?

Rao – The traditional IT model created vertical silos for a particular business function. This produced an environment where business functions in one application were often duplicated in another. It became difficult for a business to share data between functions and departments. When there was a problem, most often you created a new application to solve it. ERP packages are a response to this environment because they put all of these functions in one application. EAI is the realization that one system cannot address all of the business needs or supply chain requirements introduced by the extended enterprise.

IB Magazine – Electronic business applications often must be developed within a rapid time frame. How does EAI technology reduce 'time to market' for these systems?

Rao – It depends on the situation. If time-to-market is the most critical success factor, then an EAI solution positioned around leveraging existing components and technology can dramatically shorten development time. If a heavy mix of legacy and heterogeneous platforms exists, then the value of EAI technology increases. EAI technology presents the opportunity to structure and organize integration efforts to provide true long-term benefit by centralizing rules, reducing maintenance costs, and reducing overall complexity.

Many of the new EAI tools, such as Information Builders' EDA, include frameworks, adapters, and tools that reduce development time over traditional methods. Similarly, some tools in the business broker area have pre-defined business templates to simplify integration tasks.

IB Magazine – In what situations do you recommend Information Builders technology over internal programming for data extraction and migration?

Rao – Data extraction can be tedious, and using procedural programming to perform this task may not be the optimal use of time and resources. Information Builders has raised data extraction and migration to a higher level. Its tools can help isolate developers from the complexity of a non-relational data environment.

IB Magazine – Can you explain how Information Builders technology has made a difference to some of your customers?

Rao – We are using Information Builders technology to help our customers migrate from legacy systems to packaged applications. We have a core base of knowledge in FOCUS and EDA. These technologies are part of an integration broker architecture that we are proposing for some large projects with customers. They are also being assessed for potential use in other electronic service delivery projects. Information Builders' tools are attractive because they simplify integration of a wide array of data sources.

IB Magazine – What should a company look for when selecting an EAI partner?

Rao – An EAI partner should have a broad set of capabilities, a robust service delivery process, a solid understanding of enterprise business requirements, and be able to deliver the right solution. The partner should help articulate the parameters that define relationships between business functions and facilitate the transformation of business needs into technical requirements.

You should select a partner that is product independent and offers a complete range of services: solution architecture, solution development, and solution delivery. This includes analyzing business needs, transforming these needs into technical system usage scenarios, designing a solution by applying appropriate technology, and looking at alternative solutions. A partner that has these qualifications and proven program management skills can provide and implement the right solutions for today's extended enterprise.

IB Magazine – Clearly, an EAI organization must be concerned with more than just connecting disparate business systems.

Rao – Absolutely. When you consider the big picture, EAI is concerned with some of the fundamental questions of IT. What business problems do we need to solve? How can we leverage existing IT investments? In many cases, the data and business rules to solve these problems are available. The challenge is to devise flexible, scalable ways to obtain, use and reuse the information.