Oracle Apps

E-business is the conduct of business over the Internet, such as buying and selling products, servicing customers, and collaborating with other companies. Integration is the key requirement for successfully automating e-business activities.Integration enables applications to communicate with other applications within an enterprise (Enterprise application integration) that differ in architecture and technology. It also enables enterprises to communicatewith other enterprises (Business to Business).RosettaNet, a B2B protocol standard, Oracle9iAS support for RosettaNet,and other e-business standards such as Web Services, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Electronic Business Extensible
Markup Language (ebXML), Open Applications Group (OAGI), Health Level Seven (HL7), and SWIFT.


E-business is conducting business over the Internet, such as buying and selling products, servicing customers, and collaborating  with other companies (known as trading partners).

E-business redefines the ways in which organizations fundamentally change the way they conduct business by using the Internet technology.

The importance of e-business is based on the following business objectives:

*     Streamlining systems to deliver the right products and services to customers more efficiently
*     Automating corporate business processes to reduce cost and improve efficiency through self-service
*     Capturing, analyzing, and sharing business intelligence about customers and company operations to help make better business decisions and to continually refine business strategy
*     Achieving competitive advantage such as offering access to exclusive goods and services that a competitor cannot match

Integration technology is a key requirement for successfully automating e-business activities. To capitalize on Internet-enabled
applications, such as dynamic supply chains, customer relationship management, and emerging Web Services opportunities,
 organizations must integrate enterprise applications and business processes in order to participate in the newly connected
 environment.


Integration technology enables:
*     An application to communicate with other applications that differ in architecture and technology
*     Trading partners to communicate with other trading partners

Successful implementation of integration technology enables:
*     Third-party applications, such as SAP, Siebel, JDEdwards, PeopleSoft, and custom-built legacy applications, to communicatewith each other
*     Trading partners to communicate with other trading partners through the use of business-to-business (B2B) protocol standards. B2B protocol standards, such as RosettaNet, provide guidelines for trading partners to follow while conducting business across company boundaries.

Types of Integration

Traditionally, integration technologies have been classified as:
*     Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
*     Business-to-Business (B2B) integration





Enterprise Application Integration


Companies can use EAI to integrate their applications with other applications within the company boundaries.
EAI is critical as organizations move to integrate and optimize internal business processes to support applications such as customer relationship management or internal self-service applications.

Business-to-Business Integration

B2B integration enables companies to extend EAI between enterprises to integrate trading partners with other trading partners. B2B integration uses B2B protocol standards, such as RosettaNet, which provide guidelines for conducting business between enterprises.

B2B integration is a critical requirement because customers want to tighten linkages with trading partners and suppliers; for example, by implementing virtual, dynamic supply chains that are aimed at speeding product delivery and reducing inventory  holding costs.




 What Are EAI Standards?

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) involves packaged applications, legacy systems, data warehouses, and databases. It enables customers to gain full benefits from initiatives such as customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and supply chain management (SCM).



A business process spans all participants in an integration to coordinate the sending and receiving of data between applications. This management ensures that the correct applications send and receive data.

Challenges While Integrating Enterprises

Integration challenges while integrating enterprises (B2B) include the following:

* Conducting business between enterprises creates a new set of integration concerns with trading partners, such as:
       
Sending data securely    
Coordinating the exchange of data 
Transporting data

*  Integrations can involve complicated coordination with multiple trading partners, including buyers, sellers, retailers,  manufacturers, and raw material distributors.

Modeling Concepts: Overview

When modeling any type of integration scenario, whether it is an EAI or a B2B, there are some basic areas that an integration tool must address. These areas are:

*     Data integration
*     Function integration
*     Process integration


Data Integration

Each business transaction can represent the data differently. Data integration addresses how to map the data between each participant's business transactions.

Function Integration

Each application has components and logic that support each business transaction. Function integration addresses what components make up a business transaction.

Process Integration

Each participant in an integration scenario has defined business transactions for conducting business. Process integrationaddresses how to integrate the business transactions of each participant.