Integration Issues
Integration among enterprises needs to be addressed. For instance, not all enterprises offer all EAI applications. Some EAI applications within an enterprise need to be linked externally to other applicationsEAI or legacyrun by other enterprises. This is also true for web services supplementing the EAI applications. Web services collaborate with one another on integration of applications between an integration hub with an enterprise and other enterprises' integration hubs. They then discover applications to complete a series of tasks (for example, the process of moving products from a supply warehouse to a wholesaler, resulting in automatic adjustment of inventory records). Through XML and its associations, web services allow applications to communicate in either a loosely or tightly coupled manner with one another independent of languages and platforms.
The problem is that web services may not be able to track all the processes of a complex relationship or chain management application, such as Supply Chain Management (SCM) due to inadequate information, systems, finances, project planning, or execution of tracking movement of goods from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer and finally to consumer. Another problem is that some enterprises may not offer web services applications that need to be discovered by a requesting enterprise, even if their integration hubs are interoperable.