Enterprise Application Integration

Chapter 13. Implementing and Integrating Packaged Applications—The General Idea

	If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing."
	--Anonymous

Traditional packaged applications are too often virtual prisons, locking away the information and business processes. The difficulty in accessing this information from within these popular applications is the primary reason for the increased interest in EAI. Correctly applied, EAI frees this information, making it available to other systems or end users who may need it.

Although packaged application vendors have begun to see the value in opening up their architectures and technologies by allowing external applications and middleware to access their data and methods, they continue to do so using ...