Peer-to-Peer Integration

The following image illustrates peer-to-peer integration, where multiple applications (Human Resources, Enterprise Reporting, Manufacturing Execution, Laboratory Information Management, Siebel Business Application, and Enterprise Resource Planning) interact with each other through a central software bus. The software bus provides a uniform interface to each application. The bus also provides a number of services that can range from simple data transformation, to a more complex publish and subscribe scheme that allows a set of applications to automatically receive copies of events that are of interest, thus keeping these applications synchronized with the rest of the organization. Siebel EAI supports the services that the software bus expects from each participating application.

An enterprise can adopt a software bus strategy for application integration. Master data is partitioned across systems, and the software bus middleware implements a messaging architecture to exchange application data. The messaging functionality ranges from simple message routing, in batch or real time, to a publish and subscribe scheme.

Note: Siebel EAI supports both batch and real-time integration. Because batch integration optimizes interactions for high throughput, it uses computing resources more efficiently. By contrast, real-time integration optimizes response time.