For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

2009 Update: Evaluating Integration Alternatives

Scenario-Based Guidance For Choosing Products That Provide Application, Process, And Data Integration Features

by Ken Vollmer, Rob Karel, Larry Fulton, Noel Yuhanna, January 26, 2009

Technical innovation and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity continue to drive the evolution of the integration marketplace, leading to a market with a significantly different array of features and tools than what existed just 18 months ago. In . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Federation: Sharpen Your Focus On Vast Constellations Of Data

by James G. Kobielus, October 2, 2008

Scattered business information permeates many enterprises. This disunited data often conforms to various schemas and formats, resides in sundry databases and applications, and falls under the purview of myriad owners, administrators, and business domains. . . .

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

Many Enterprises Don't Use Their Enterprise Integration Tools For B2B

by Ken Vollmer, October 1, 2008

A recent Forrester survey indicates that just 53% of organizations use their enterprise integration tools to meet their B2B needs. The other 47% rely on B2B-specific integration tools to accomplish their objectives in this area. There are many reasons . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Turning Transactions Into Decisions

Data Integration Optimization For Operational BI

by Rob Karel, Keith Gile, September 25, 2006

Data integration techniques such as extract, transform, and load (ETL); enterprise information integration (EII); change data capture (CDC); and even custom-coding play a significant and perhaps the most critical role in delivering operational business . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Information Management 101

How To Tackle An Enterprise Information Management Strategy

by Barry Murphy, January 3, 2006

Organizations constantly search for ways to innovate and improve performance. To gain competitive advantage, many desire to more effectively leverage information within their many electronic and manual systems. After all, abundant information — about . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Ironically, Most Enterprise Information Integration Implementations Require a Persistent Database

by Philip Russom, February 3, 2004

When IT implements EII technology, a common goal is to avoid copying data from multiple sources into a prebuilt persistent database.

Building a Homegrown Solution for Enterprise Information Integration (EII)

by Philip Russom, December 29, 2003

Building your own homegrown EII solution is possible, using many tools and skills you may already have in-house, such as database views in your database management system, a data modeling tool, data-access middleware and so on.

Enterprise Information Integration and Enterprise Application Integration: Both Real-Time, but Satisfy Different Requ

by Philip Russom, December 23, 2003

Although EII and EAI share characteristics, especially real-time operation, they are fundamentally different, because EII is a form of data integration, whereas EAI is a form of application integration.

Enterprise Information Integration Can Enhance, Even Replace, Some Operational Data Stores

by Philip Russom, December 22, 2003

EII can occasisonally replace a single-purpose ODS, but its value usually comes from complementing a latent ODS with real-time data integration.

Enterprise Information Integration Complements Data Warehousing

by Philip Russom, December 22, 2003

EII complements, but does not necessarily replace, a data warehouse. The situations in which EII can be substituted for a data warehouse are the exception, yet EII can play useful roles in data warehousing where data requires "on the fly" integration.

EII Surfaces Data Quality Issues, Just Like Other Data Integration Technologies Do

by Philip Russom, September 25, 2003

Enterprise information integration is still relatively new, and its best practices are not fully disseminated, which helps to explain why data quality is a regularly overlooked requirement.

Actuate's Acquisition of Nimble Technology Reveals the Positive Technical Synergy Between Reporting and EII

by Philip Russom, Keith Gile, August 4, 2003

Once the integration of technical capabilities is complete, companies needing fairly deep data integration functions embedded in a reporting platform should evaluate the Actuate Information Application Platform and its Information Objects.

Data Access Middleware vs. Enterprise Information Integration

by Henry Peyret, April 23, 2003

Data access middleware and enterprise information integration, two different approaches to accessing data in one storage system or multiple storage systems, complement rather than compete against each other.

IBM Enters the Enterprise Information Integration Market, Both Corroborating and Redefining It

February 7, 2003

The recent announcement of two new software products marks IBM s official entry into the market for enterprise information integration. IBM is the first large vendor to enter the space, a move that corroborates the value of EII.

Integration Alternatives: Enterprise Information Integration Best Suited to Time-Sensitive Data From Heterogeneous Sourc

by Philip Russom, January 17, 2003

Enterprise information integration (EII) technology provides database views (as virtual constructs described by metadata) that make multiple data sources look like one, thereby enabling heterogeneous queries for applications and query tools.

Enterprise Information Integration Complements Other Forms of Data Integration

by Philip Russom, December 26, 2002

Both ETL and EII are forms of data integration. Yet, the two accomplish data integration using different assumptions and techniques, resulting in two distinct approaches that are largely complementary.

Defining Enterprise Information Integration (EII)

by Philip Russom, December 23, 2002

Enterprise information integration is a collection of technologies and best practices for providing custom views into multiple data sources as a way of integrating data and content for real-time read and write access by applications.

Two Sets of Requirements for Enterprise Information Integration

by Philip Russom, December 23, 2002

One of the reasons vendor offerings for EII seem so diverse is that they are trying to satisfy two different profiles of user organization. Even more confusing, the two profiles share the same requirements, yet each requirement is a matter of degree.

Enterprise Information Integration Achieves Data Integration Without Data Movement

by Philip Russom, December 23, 2002

Clients needing real-time data integration with minimal data movement should consider EII platforms based on federated or virtual databases. But, when evaluating vendor offerings, user organizations must be sure the vendor is stable.