Bookshelf v7.5: Other Integration Strategies

Overview: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume I > Overview >

Other Integration Strategies

Other integration strategies are applicable as well. These include master data partitioning, data sharing, presentation layer integration (screen scraping), and others.

Cross-Application Process Integration. Successful eBusiness demands business processes that span across multiple applications—for example, a quote to cash business process spans across credit check, inventory management, billing, shipping and many other application services. Siebel eAI facilitates such cross- application business processes.

Master Data Partitioning. Master data refers to the set of data required by a community of applications. Master data is partitioned between applications; each piece of data is owned by one and only one application, but the community imposes rules for the creation and update of master data.

Data Sharing. Siebel eAI allows Siebel eBusiness Applications to access external data in real time without having to maintain a local duplicate copy. This is a common requirement in the financial services industry, where the customer information file typically resides on a mainframe.

Presentation Layer Integration. Siebel eAI supports client-side integration in a Web client environment. Client-side integration consists of integrating applications at the user interface level, either by juxtaposing the screens within a portal and coordinating the content, or by screen scraping the content of one into the other.

Data Mapping and Transformation. Data shared between applications might not be structured or encoded in the same way. To facilitate integration of nonidentical data structures, Siebel eAI specifies mapping and transformation rules, including filtering and structural changes.

Centralized Application Administration. Siebel eBusiness Applications participate in an application management framework, which facilitates overall administration of all applications.

Upgradeable Integration. The Siebel eBusiness platform is designed so that integration points can be migrated to a new release of Siebel eBusiness Applications and adapted to new releases of external application packages. This capability means organizations can use prior investments in their integrations when upgrading to new versions of Siebel applications or third-party applications.