L1 - Overview of System Integration Flashcards
What is the goal of the system integration lecture?
To provide an introduction to system integration and an overview of the three main approaches to system integration.
What is business agility?
The ability of a business to act rapidly and efficiently deliver value to customers
How does IT support business agility?
By providing an integrated infrastructure enabling real-time automation of business operations across multiple systems.
What are examples of business systems that require integration?
CRM systems (for managing customers).
Business intelligence systems (for analysis/analytics).
Payroll systems (for managing payments).
Why do business systems typically not communicate with each other?
They rely on different software types, programming languages, data standards, and operating systems.
What is system integration (SI)?
The process of linking together distributed systems/software applications into a single architecture from the user’s perspective.
Purpose of System Integration
What should the resulting solution of SI achieve?
Automated sharing of business data, functions, and processes among connected systems.
What benefits does system integration solve?
Productivity
Scalability
Real-time or Near-real-time communication
What are the three core approaches to system integration?
Information-oriented
Service-oriented
Process-oriented
What does the information-oriented SI approach focus on?
Providing an integrated view of data contained in contrasting systems.
How are information-oriented solutions generally solved?
By replicating or integrating data at the meta-data or data level.
What does the service-oriented SI approach focus on?
Integrating loosely coupled, reusable software functions.
What are the core principles of service-oriented SI?
Reusability – using a service in different contexts.
Composability – composing smaller services into bigger ones.
Loose-coupling – avoiding tight coupling among services.
What does the process-oriented SI approach focus on?
Structuring communication between systems as an automated process.
How does the process-oriented SI approach integrate business processes?
By modeling integration as existing business processes.
What does the process-oriented SI approach separate?
It separates process from application logic.
What does the process-oriented SI approach coordinate?
The flow of information and services to enable complex integrations.
What are the two key aspects of system integration?
Communication
Management
What does communication refer to in system integration?
The data and functionality being shared among integrated systems.
What does management refer to in system integration?
The coordination of integration, including who communicates, when, and the rules.
What are the three conceptual solutions for integration management?
Distributed
(point-to-point integration)
Centralized
(multipoint integration)
Hybrid integration
What is distributed integration?
Both communication and management are handled by the involved systems (point-to-point integration).
What is centralized integration?
Both communication and management are handled by integration middleware (multipoint integration).
What is hybrid integration?
Communication is handled by involved systems, but management is centralized via middleware.
What is system integration middleware?
A logic that supports the integration of distributed applications using a tool.
