Connecting ESRI to Anything: EAI Solutions

Transcription

1 Connecting ESRI to Anything: EAI Solutions Frank Weiss P.E., ESRI User s Conference 2002

2 Agenda Introduction What is EAI? Industry trends Key integration issues Point-to-point interfaces vs. Middleware Why use Middleware? Integration options and definitions Integration management issues Questions January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 2

3 Introduction Who am I? Utility, GIS and integration background Who are you? Industries represented EAI projects in planning or in progress? About this presentation High level EAI overview Only a few technical details are presented here. More details available via demo January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 3

4 What is EAI? EAI stands for Enterprise Application Integration. Purpose - to connect different applications together so that they can share information and functionality. The E is important - Integration across the entire enterprise usually leads to the highest benefits (and also has the highest cost). The cost/benefit ratio needs to be evaluated, just like any other project. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 4

5 What is EAI? - General Thoughts Not everyone needs EAI, but some sort of integration is usually beneficial EAI is not one-size-fits-all There are lots of different ways to achieve integration. Like with other things, you need to take a common sense approach EAI has not yet been widely adopted by ESRI clients EAI, like many software initiatives, will not stay still. It is continuing to evolve rapidly. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 5

6 What are the Industry Trends? Maturity of integration technology has advanced rapidly over last decade and will continue to advance. Integration is increasingly seen as a key to improving efficiency and customer service. Technologies still often reside as islands of automation (departmental applications) Industry has increasingly turned to IT as means to increase efficiency of operations and to improve customer service January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 6

7 The Role of IT is Changing Intensification of buy versus build enterprise application development strategies The role of corporate IT continues to shift from application development to application configuration and integration Evolving Role of Corporate IT Application Development Integration Application Configuration Infrastructure Development Focus of competitive differentiation centers on endto-end integration excellence supported by robust infrastructures Critical IT Success Factor: Delivery of robust (yet agile) application integration infrastructures. Source: META Group, October 2001 January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 7

8 What are the Key Integration Issues? Custom software vs. out-of-the-box software Software fits the business or visa-versa Best-of-breed vs. tightly integrated software packages Need to maximize productivity and efficiency. Trend is toward tightly integrated software packages. Should you use a vendor to assist with the integration. If so, what is the right number of vendors? January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 8

9 What are the Key Integration Issues? Make sure that you do what is practical Leverage existing technology investments to the fullest extent possible. Complete both short-term and long-term planning so that you can implement and deploy solutions that meet near-term critical needs while developing a core architecture for the future Best Practices Best Practices Best of Breed Solutions Legacy Systems Single Vendor Integration January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 9

10 Point-to-Point Interface Architecture GIS Outage Management Work/Asset Management Applications Server EMS/SCADA Mobile Dispatch CIS January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 10

11 Conceptual EAI Architecture Objective: Operational Efficiency Industry Standards Efforts (EPRI CIM, IEC WG 13 and 14) Conceptual Architecture Suppliers/ Net Markets ERP Suite Work Mgmt Design EAI Hub GIS Mobile Data Retail Suite Outage Mgmt/ Gas Mgmt EMS/ SCADA Meter Reading Source: META Group, October 2001 Experience to date has validated EAI benefits vs. point-to to-point interfaces. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 11

12 Integration Bus - Big $ and Schedule Trans Wires Model SCADA Dist. Wires Model VRU Planning Systems EMS Outage Management Distribution Automation Information System Interface Adapter Interface Adapter Interface Adapter MIDDLEWARE SERVICES Event History Resource Management Data Warehouse Work Management GIS Financial = Interface Adapter Network model update (Base picture courtesy of IEC TC57 WG14) January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 12

13 What is Middleware? Middleware is a class of software used for achieving EAI. Middleware also refers to various supporting technologies, such as standards for creating common messages for enterprise applications to exchange with each other Middleware allows companies to keep existing systems, add new systems, and link systems together January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 13

14 Why use Middleware? Reduces platform compatibility hassles Development of different systems can be done in parallel if interface is defined in advance. This can also be achieved with good programming practices, but it s harder. Fault tolerance Load balancing Cross system two-phase commit January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 14

15 Messaging standards for middleware Creating standard messages is a critical part of any EAI implementation HTML is an example of this - any text between <b> and </b> will appear bold in the client s browser, and any text between <i> and </i> will be italic. Because HTML is a standard that all web browsers know how to interpret and display, and because all web servers know this standard, web servers know exactly how to communicate with browsers. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 15

16 Messaging standards for middleware Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a cousin of HTML Microsoft s.net is an XML based mechanism for creating web-based services Many middleware products (such as WebMethods and MQSeries Integrator) provide extensive XML support January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 16

17 Application Interface Categories Transaction processing monitors Remote procedure calls Object request brokers Message queue-oriented middleware Publish and subscribe / Broker-oriented middleware January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 17

18 Transaction Processing Monitor Clients invoke remote procedures residing on the servers containing the relational data base engine. The procedures, in turn, execute a group of local SQL statements constituting a transaction. Applications using TP monitors tend to be mission-critical, requiring a rapid response, high availability and tight control over the security and integrity of the database. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 18

19 Transaction Processing Monitor The communication overhead in this approach is kept to a minimum because the exchange typically consists of a single request/reply, as opposed to multiple SQL statements that would be required if the client were connected to the data base server directly. TP monitors are considered when mission critical transactions need to be coordinated and synchronized over multiple databases. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 19

20 Remote Procedure Calls One of the earliest forms of interprogram communication The code invokes a procedure that is located on a remote system, and the results are returned Generally, the application components communicate with each other synchronously (i.e., they use a request/wait-for-reply model). January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 20

21 Remote Procedure Calls RPCs work well for smaller, simple applications where communication is primarily point-to-point. RPCs do not scale well to large applications, as they leave many crucial details to be worked out by a programmer, such as: Handling network or system failures, Handling multiple connections, Portability, Buffering and flow control, Synchronization between processes. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 21

22 Object Request Brokers Object Request Brokers (ORBS) can be thought of as language-independent, objectoriented RPCs. There are two competing standards for ORBs: CORBA, by Object Management Group (OMG), a consortium of over 900 companies Distributed Common Object Model, (DCOM), by Microsoft January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 22

23 Object Request Brokers Java s Remote Method Invocation (RMI) could be considered an ORB, although it is useful primarily for facilitating communication between two programs written in Java Early ORBs were defined as synchronous and operated in a point-to-point manner. The latest specification of CORBA, however, makes allowance for asynchronous communication between objects. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 23

24 Message Queue Oriented Middleware Message Oriented Middleware products work by passing information in the form of a message from one program to one or more other programs These messages have headers that indicate the destination, and payloads of varying sizes and formats that contain the actual data. Messages can be passed asynchronously, where the sender does not have to wait for a reply. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 24

25 Message Queue Oriented Middleware What s the main difference? Unlike both ORB and RPC products, Message Oriented Middleware, in general, does not assume the system has a reliable transport layer underneath. Message Oriented Middleware tries to address the problems that surface when the transport layer is unreliable, as occurs when programs must communicate over a WAN or over the Internet. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 25

26 Message Queuing Source system puts message in a queue and receiving system retrieves the message when it needs the information. This approach is reliable, but slow. It is still used today in many transaction-oriented environments where security of transactions and integrity of message delivery is a high priority. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 26

27 Publish and Subscribe Middleware Publish and subscribe evolved from the need to deliver messages in real time, especially to a large number of clients. Clients register for certain kinds of messages they are interested in, and a server sends the clients those messages in real time. This type of middleware is sometimes called Broker Oriented Middleware. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 27

28 Broker Oriented Middleware Broker-oriented middleware relies on a central database to receive and redistribute all the standardized messages When a message is received, the broker scans a list of host applications that are interested in that type of message, and sends the message to all of those applications. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 28

29 Using EAI with ESRI Software Middleware or point-to-point interfaces will work just fine. Three different possibilities exist for establishing real-time communications between ESRI and other enterprise applications: COM.NET Enterprise Java Beans January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 29

30 Using EAI with ESRI Software COM ESRI is actually the largest COM implementation currently in existence even larger than Microsoft s own Office suite. A single application can be written that utilizes COM objects from ArcIMS, middleware services, transactions engines, graphical user interfaces, etc. COM-based development environments, such as Visual Basic and Visual C++, can create superapplications that utilize the COM services of multiple vendors. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 30

31 Using EAI with ESRI Software COM (continued) Many middleware technologies also have COM services. For example, IBM s Messaging Queuing Series (MQS) provides COM objects that allow interactions with its queues. Writing applications that combine ESRI and middleware COM objects creates real-time links with the benefits of fault tolerance, load balancing, etc. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 31

32 Using EAI with ESRI Software.NET Microsoft s latest architectural revolution uses a technology called.net.net is Microsoft's new platform for creating and using Extensible Markup Language (XML) Web services. XML Web services break down the distinctions between the Internet, stand-alone applications, and computing devices of every kind. They enable businesses to collaborate to offer solutions that act on information any time, any place, and on any device. (Microsoft quote) January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 32

33 Using EAI with ESRI Software Enterprise Java Beans COM and.net are both Microsoft based mechanisms for incorporating ESRI into EAI solutions. For non-microsoft applications, another mechanism is necessary. ESRI s ArcIMS provides support for Java Server Pages (JSP) and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) Many middleware products also have Java APIs. Java applications can be written that use ESRI and middleware APIs to create real-time connections. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 33

34 Successful Integration Projects Functional/ Applications Expertise Technology Architecture & Platform Expertise Project & Program Management Experience/Expertise Combination of expertise required for success January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 34

35 Issues that Impact Integration Projects Expectations EAI is a silver bullet that will deliver quick and easy results - Wrong! Technology New technology is often purchased but not implemented fully Processes Processes are changed to fit technology. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it causes more problems than it solves. January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 35

36 Issues that Impact Integration Projects People Change management lite, or none at all always leads to disaster. Data GIGO (data law: garbage in = garbage out) January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 36

37 Questions? January 8, 2003 Proprietary & Confidential 37