Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

What Is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)?

Enterprise application integration (EAI) is a design philosophy that prioritizes the ability of information technology (IT) components to share data and communicate with each other seamlessly.

The goal of EAI products and services is to improve IT operations management by reducing or eliminating data silos and managing data quality consistently across both local and external IT environments.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. What Is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)?
2. Key Takeaways
3. History of EAI
4. How Enterprise Application Integration Works
5. EAI Types
6. EAI Models
7. Enterprise Application Integration Uses
8. Enterprise Application Integration Pros & Cons
9. The Bottom Line
10. FAQs
11. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. What Is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)?
2. Key Takeaways
3. History of EAI
Show Full Guide
4. How Enterprise Application Integration Works
5. EAI Types
6. EAI Models
7. Enterprise Application Integration Uses
8. Enterprise Application Integration Pros & Cons
9. The Bottom Line
10. FAQs
11. References

History of EAI

In the 1990s, business computing environments were characterized by disparate hardware and software applications that operated in isolation. The fragmentation, which created information silos, inspired the development of EAI as an IT market segment by the early 2000s.

Initial EAI products and services used middleware to establish direct, point-to-point integration between applications. As the number of applications grew, however, this approach became difficult to scale.

In response, the enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture was developed to make application integration less complex and more scalable. ESBs centralize the integration logic and allow applications to communicate through a common system bus that reduces the number of direct connections required for communication.

ESBs can also be implemented using a hub-and-spoke architecture that puts the enterprise service bus at the center of the hub. In this architecture, applications act as spokes that connect to the central hub for all communication and data exchange.

By 2010, it became clear that service-oriented architectures (SOAs) provided an even better approach to application integration than ESBs. The modularity that SOA provides allows software components to be reused, which in turn, facilitates a more decentralized, loosely coupled approach to integration that can be considered “cloud-ready.”

In fact, by the end of the decade, many EAI vendors were developing cloud-based integration platforms marketed under the integration platform as a service (iPaaS) umbrella to differentiate them from legacy point-to-point and ESB EAIs.

How Enterprise Application Integration Works

Contemporary EAI products and services have continued to evolve by taking advantage of microservices, serverless computing, and artificial intelligence tools:

Today, many iPaaS offerings have drag-and-drop interfaces that make it relatively easy for citizen developers to integrate disparate software applications with pre-defined application programming interface (API) connectors. Essentially, the connectors create protocols for exchanging requests and responses between applications.

EAI Types

Every EAI initiative should begin by determining which applications need to be connected and what data needs to be shared among them.

The next step is to decide which type of EAI will do the job best:

EAI Models

When implementing EAI strategies for digital transformation purposes, IT administrators may choose an EAI type based on technical requirements and constraints and then select an EAI model based on business needs and objectives.

Currently, the four most popular EAI models are:

• Enterprise data integration: Prioritizes how and when data is synchronized across systems.
• Process integration: Coordinates and automates workflows among applications.
• Service integration: Connects applications with APIs and loosely coupled web services.
• Presentation integration: Standardizes graphical user interfaces (GUIs) across different applications.

Enterprise Application Integration Uses

EAI design principles not only support the concept of digital transformation, they also make it easier to automate business processes that span multiple applications.

Although it can be argued that iPaaS solutions have largely replaced EAI solutions, the need for interoperability continues to influence and inform the development and implementation of many iPaaS offerings.

4 Reasons to Implement Enterprise Application Integration Design Principles

• EAI promotes the use of standardized data formats (like XML or JSON) to ensure that applications can understand and exchange data with each other.
• An increasing number of EAI and iPaaS support tools have automated data transformation and mapping features that allow data to be used seamlessly by applications with different data structures.
• SOA principles like loose coupling support write-once, run anywhere (WORA) strategies that make integration easier.
• Low-code and no-code API connections provide non-technical users with a standardized way to expose application functionality and enable integration with other applications and services.

Enterprise Application Integration Pros & Cons

EAI design principles can make application integration easier and support automation, but organizations need to weigh the benefits against the challenges to maximize benefits and minimize risks:

The Bottom Line

In the past, EAI definitions typically focused on ways to integrate enterprise applications within an organization’s internal environment. As the technology evolved and cloud computing became more prevalent, however, the meaning of EAI has expanded to include design principles and models that address a broader range of integration needs.

FAQs