- Technical Architectures for E-Business (Part 2)
- Proven Technology?
- Skills
- Integration with Existing Systems
- Interoperability/Openness
- Portability
- Costs
- Independent Comparisons/Reviews
- Conclusion
Integration with Existing Systems
New technology can't be brought in with total disregard for existing legacy systems. In many cases, ODBC or JDBC can provide the glue that's necessary to enable data to be sent to and from existing legacy systems; however, there are exceptions. One big area of concern currently is in the translation of EDI messages into XML format. Many businesses simply converted their systems to use XML to send and receive EDI messages, expecting everyone else to do the same, but because so many messages are still sent via the good old EDI mechanisms, they found themselves with almost as much work to do after converting their systems to XML as they had beforenow their time is spent converting existing EDI messages into XML format on receipt and before transmitting back to business partners who refuse to move forward and use XML themselves! While there are a number of packages that help with such conversions, the nature of EDI formats still makes this an arduous task.