B2B Application Integration

COSC643

Sungchul Hong

Goal

• Understand current B2B related applications

• Understand the relationships among B2B application

• Integration of B2B applications.

E-Business

• Web-enabled selling

• Middle-ware

• Internet-enabled supply chain integration– EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

• Flow of information and material– Information Systems

Introduction

• E-business characteristics– Instantaneous– All participating systems are able to

communicate in any direction.– Systems are bound at both the data and process

levels.– All relevant information existing in any

participating system is accessible by any other participating system.

Real Time Business

• Purchase of a new car– Orders a car at a dealership – Manufacturer– Parts, supplier

• Raw materials

– Manufacturing– Dealer

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

• Many owners of supply chains already use it.

• Sharing information– Order or payment data

• Partially automated– It is not good enough

Different Systems and Different Standards

• What is the price?

• How can we represent it?

• If you have different systems, how can we make these systems communicate each other?

• Which method is the best?

DeliveryRegion Territory

Customer

Price Type

Agreements Agreement

AgreementID

ValidityTimePeriod StartDate

EndDate

EndDate

StartDate

ValidityTimePeriod

Currency

ProductPrice

SimpleAmount

ParametrizedAmount

AmountFormula

PriceRequest

SetPrice SetProductPrice

RefProductID

BaseType

SetProductValueMonetaryAmount

PercentageFactor

Price

AllowOrChargeType

AllowOrChargeDescription

BaseType

AllowOrChargeValue

UpperBoundQuantity

UpperBoundAmount

PriceBracket

ValidityTimePeriod

Tax

TaxFactor

TaxType

TaxDescription

SequenceNumber

SettlementType

SequenceNumber

PercentageFactor

MonetaryAmount

AdditionalOrderUnits

EndDate

StartDate

AllowOrCharge

B2B Application Integration

• After years of creating islands of automation within each company, users and business managers are demanding that seamless bridges now be built to join these islands together.

• Financial prudence

• Opportunity for profit

B2B Application Integration

• It is the mechanisms and approaches to allow partner organizations, such as suppliers and consumers, to share information in support of common business events.

• If company A has a sales order entry system that provides a system for recording sales, then company B, a part supplier, must have a parts system that is instantly integrated with company A’s sales system.

Traditional Approach

• Traditional middleware was built to integrate applications within an enterprise and does not take into account the special needs of B2B integration.

• Point-to-Point solution

Middleware

• Middleware is a mechanism to move information and shared business logic between applications.

• During business transactions, the middleware hides the complexity of the underlying operating system and network and allows information exchange on be half of the application programs.

Categories of Middleware

• TP Monitors

• Message Brokers

• Application Server

• Distributed Objects

Business Rues Integration

• Binding of application logic between tow or more e-Business partners.

• The composite applications that exist are accessible to all interested parties.

• The exchange of both information and business rules is fully automated

• CORBA

Information Integration

• Lower level than business rules integration

• Message brokers, data replication engines, and data migration engines. (XML)

• Provide a platform for exchanging relevant business data in order to support e-Business initiatives. (order and invoice data)

• Inexpensive

Process Integration

• Provides a set of processes that function above both business rules and information integration.

• Provide abstract business layer that exists over the physical one. (logical flow of information)

Collaboration

• Providing a geographically dispersed workgroup with the opportunity to share messages and other information in real time to support a business need.

• Customer relationship management, online customer service, virtual product development.

• Provide interface to human and systems.

Types of Middleware

Remote procedure calls (RPC) type synchronous

 Message oriented message (MOM) type asynchronous

 Message Broker type. Asynchronous and many-to-many

transactions

 DistributedComputing Environment (DCE) from the Open Group. (RPC)

  MSMQ from Microsoft (MOM)   MQSeries from IBM (MOM)    Tuxedo from BEA systems (TP Monitors)    MTS from Microsoft (TP Monitors)    CICS from IBM (TP Monitors)   Enterprise JavaBeans from SUN (application server) SAP R/3 (application server)

– COM+ (with AppCenter) from Microsoft (application server & distributed objects)

Middleware Vendors

• BEA

• SAGA Software

• IBM

• NEON

• Tibco

• SUN

Point-to-Point Middleware

• Message queuing• Remote procedure calls• Traditional middleware requires significant

alterations to both the source and target systems.• Integration of a custom accounting system running

on Windows 2000 and a custom inventory control system running on a main frame within another company.

• According to the Aberdeen Group, dual-application linking cost is as high as $10 million.

New Middleware Features

• Support for inter-and intra-process integration

• Support for B2B standards including RosettaNet, ebXML, and EDI

• Support for Internet-enabled information exchange

• Support for advanced security models

Types of B2B application Integration

• Data-oriented

• Application interface-oriented

• Method-oriented

• Portal-oriented

• Process integration-oriented

Data Oriented

• It is the process or technology of extracting information from one database and updating it in another database within another organization.

• Large number of databases• It may also include the transformations and

application of business logic to the data.• Cost is the advantage.

Application Interface-Oriented

• Developers are able to bundle any number of application and allowing them to share business logic and information.

• Need specific features and functions of the application interface.

• Packaged application

• SAP, PeopleSoft, Baan (Vendors)

Method-Oriented

• Sharing business logic that exists within the enterprise.

• Distributed objects

• Application server

• Transaction Process (TP) monitors

• frameworks

Portal-Oriented

• Application architects can integrate applications by presenting information from several local or partner applications within the same user interface.

• www.exite.com, www.yahoo.com

Process Integration-Oriented

• It provides those who are supporting B2B application integration with a business-oriented and and process automation-like view of how business information flows between trading partners.

• Collaboration-level B2B application integration