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photo, Claudia Imhoff
Remember the story of Humpty Dumpty? All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again. Many IT professionals tell me that they often feel like they live in Humpty Dumpty land. Ever since the first two computer programs were written, IT has struggled with the resulting disintegration - putting the data and applications together again. Integration of data and applications across the enterprise has been the long- standing goal of many organizations; however, until recently, we have been limited in the technological help to achieve this goal. Fortunately, we have three technologies to help with this. I call them the three E's - enterprise application integration (EAI), enterprise information integration (EII) and extract, transform and load (ETL) software. These technologies range from the need for real time versus batch integration and from the need for the integration of data versus the integration of applications. Figure 1 demonstrates where the three technologies reside in terms of these two spectra. If your needs are for real time data integration, then EII is the best bet. If you need batch data integration, then ETL is a better fit. And, if your need is for batch or real time application integration, EAI is the most appropriate tool. With any new technologies such as these, there are always substantial amounts of confusion regarding what each technology really does and when it should be used. To avoid this, you need to develop a clear definition of these technologies and then determine where and when you would use them. Let's start with definitions. After talking to a number of vendors such as...