Enterprise Integration Middleware

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EDA Evolution

From Data Access Middleware to Networked Application Infrastructure, EDA Continues to Set the Standard for Enterprise Computing

by John Senor
Vice President of the EDA Division
Information Builders

As networked computing enters the mainstream of enterprise and inter-enterprise business computing, Information Builders is keeping pace by rapidly evolving its EDA middleware to simplify the process of building, managing, and deploying networked applications. Information Builders continues to expand the capabilities of its EDA family, introducing new middleware products specifically designed to support enterprise-scale, networked computing.

Getting there has been an exciting journey. When Information Builders first introduced EDA more than seven years ago, middleware was an unknown term and an unproven commodity within the domain of business computing. But as the PC revolution spawned the need to connect millions of desktop computers to a wide variety of corporate data stores, middleware proved its intrinsic value.

Client/server middleware eliminated many of the "gotchas" to implementing reasonably-scalable, well-behaved applications by providing a location-transparent means of transporting requests and answers between applications and data residing at opposite ends of a common wire. Middleware was placed between local application logic and remote data to deal with the peculiarities of sending requests and receiving answers between just about any combination of systems.

As one of the leading examples of client/server middleware, EDA has become well known as a sort of software glue between operating systems, networks, databases, and file structures. Other customers think of it as a veil that masks the underlying complexities of traversing complex, heterogeneous systems. But whichever metaphor you use, the end result is the same: EDA's role is simplicity – to enable client/server applications to be implemented as easily, as quickly and without any more specialized knowledge than any previous generation of business computing application.

Network Computing Horizons

Network computing is being driven by the desire to use the Internet for business computing purposes. The aim is to replace labor-, time-, and error-intensive business processes with Web applications that enable users to interact directly with operational systems. These self-service applications are used to place orders, move inventory, process claims, and so forth, eliminating delays and alleviating the need for costly intermediaries.

But networked business applications have much different operational characteristics than client/server applications. E-commerce applications, for example, start with the assumption of scalability far beyond most client/server implementations. Internet applications also have unpredictable usage patterns, requiring more behavioral flexibility, better resource management, and more reliable delivery capabilities than their client/server predecessors.

As client/server makes way for this new generation of applications, a more capable generation of middleware is emerging. We like to use the term infrastructure to describe these new middleware capabilities since it implies a more robust, all-encompassing application integration environment that combines several middleware functions into a single, easy-to-manage solution.

As infrastructure, EDA's role, once again, will be to provide simplicity. That is, to insulate developers from the underlying complexities of blending highly diverse environments where: networked applications need to work with other networked applications; with networked data; with legacy applications or data; or with packaged application systems.

To put it even more simply, EDA's role is to enable developers to focus on their real job: building useful applications, without regard for how they are written, where things run, or the topology over which they run. That's infrastructure!

EDA for Networked Computing

In 1998, Information Builders took a big step forward in the evolution toward networked computing by introducing EDA for the Networked Enterprise (ENE), an expanded multi-function middleware architecture. ENE supported not only client/server, Web and Message-based interoperability, but offered extensive support for networked computing through CORBA 2.0 (IIOP), Microsoft's Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), Java's Enterprise Java Beans Component Model (EJB), and legacy transaction environments such as CICS and IMS/TM.

ENE was really just a transitional strategy for introducing new capabilities into the EDA product family. It helped customers make the transition from client/server to networked computing topologies. But with its separate Web Servers, CORBA Servers, Message Servers, and so forth, ENE required too many individual pieces to make networked computing truly viable.

Beginning in January, 1999, and continuing throughout the year in a series of incremental releases, Information Builders will introduce a substantially enhanced generation of EDA and EDA-compatible application infrastructure technologies designed to meet the needs of the most advanced networked applications.

These enhancements will be compatible with EDA 3.1 and above, as well as with existing client/server applications. However, many of Information Builders' new application infrastructure enhancements will specifically target the challenges of implementing high-performance, highly reliable, highly scalable and manageable networked applications. These infrastructure enhancements will be useful in environments where integration of diverse applications, data, transactions and networks is the single biggest impediment to enterprise and inter-enterprise scale success.

Enhancements for the Next Generation

Enhancements to EDA's core server, communications and networking capabilities will enable customers to evolve their current business applications toward next generation networked computing – at their own speed – using EDA as the underlying application infrastructure. In addition to EDA's world-class data access capabilities, new enhancements will enable EDA Servers to perform equally well as application servers or combined application/data servers for multi-tier, networked applications.

For example, networked Applications require PRSM (Performance, Reliability, Scalability, and Manageability) far beyond the capabilities of client/server middleware. In 1999, customers will see the extension of application server characteristics into the core EDA Server, enabling EDA to manage distributed application interaction across inter-connected environments. For example, EDA will function as an application server for logic executing across interconnected EDA Server environments that can themselves be interacting with external transaction systems or packaged applications such as CICS, IMS/TM, and SAP R/3.

EDA's application server capabilities will be deployable separately from its data server capabilities to enable applications to take advantage of a new generation of low-cost and powerful networked processors. At the mid-tier, these capabilities will be useful for deploying application logic written in any 3GL as well as in Information Builders' FOCUS or Cactus languages. EDA's new application server capabilities can be combined with its data access capabilities to create a complete Information Management Server for managing applications and data in a single implementation. Flexibility is what these new EDA capabilities are all about.

Java for Web-Enterprise Convergence

To complement EDA Application and Data Server capabilities for the Java environment, Information Builders is introducing Parlay, a 100% Pure Java application integration server for Network to Enterprise integration. Formerly an ENE product extension, Parlay has been enhanced to function in a standalone capacity.

Parlay is intended for customers who have chosen the Java platform as their primary point of Web-to-enterprise convergence. It enables these customers to write and deploy networked applications that make extensive use of server-side Java for new application functions, as well as legacy application integration. Parlay is completely compatible with EDA Data Servers for enterprise data access.

Customers choosing the Java platform, and using Parlay's rich application, networking, and enterprise integration capabilities, will be able to perform the following tasks:

	Reduce report development time.
	Quickly extend the use of existing applications, transaction systems, message-based applications, packaged applications, or any EDA-supported operational data source to environments such as the Internet.
	Develop new network-centric applications that are interoperable with other networked applications or Java-components, or even existing client/server desktop applications.
	Leverage Java component reusability throughout multiple networked environments, including non-network applications.
	Extend the use of Web/FOCUS or Cactus-based applications within network-centric, Java applications.

Middleware Redefined

No single vendor or application architecture will dominate the networked enterprise. That's why networked applications will require a little help from application infrastructure in creating convergence among this new generation of business systems as well as between networked applications and diverse, distributed data sources.

With the addition of new, networked application interoperability capabilities to Information Builders repertoire of middleware products, customers can start where they want to and grow where they need to, within the world of enterprise and inter-enterprise networked computing, while protecting their investment in existing applications and data.

These developments all capitalize on the initial value proposition of EDA as an extremely comprehensive solution for integrating heterogeneous computing environments. We are making EDA bigger, broader, and more applicable as a full-service application integration infrastructure for today's enterprise customers.