Application Integration Reality or Hallucination

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Application IntegrationReality or Hallucination?

• Douglas C. Schmidt
• schmidt_at_uci.edu
• University of California, Irvine
• Irvine, CA, USA

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Application Integration Success Stories

• Boeing Bold Stroke
• Common software platform for Boeing figher
  airplane mission computing systems
• www.boeing.com

• Siemens MED
• Common software platform for distributed
  electronic medical information imaging systems
• Used by all 13 Siemens MED business units
  worldwide
• www.syngo.com

• Reasons for Success
• Strong economic incentive, e.g., reduce lifecycle
  costs for product lines
• Experienced software architects, e.g., know when
  to build vs. buy
• Architecture guided technology acquisition, e.g.,
  continuous adaptation
• Effective partnering with suppliers, both
  commercial and researchers
• Support from multiple management levels,
  integrated with strong technologists

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Observations Lessons Learned

• Its hard to integrate applications due to
• Lack of crisply defined APIs in legacy systems
• The general lack of semantic information about
  the constituent frameworks/components their
  robust coordination in DOC systems
• DOC middleware can be an effective technology for
  integrating applications since it combines a
  civilized ( maybe portable) programming model
  with other desirable properties
• Legacy software can be addressed via wrapping,
  re-engineering, or re-writing though there are
  few optimal/painless solutions (short of
  discarding)
• Technology is only part of the solution, but its
  a non-trivial part
• If you get stuck integrating legacy applications
  you might consider moving to a .com startup -)
• We need considerable research on application
  integration, e.g.,