| In the last few years, there is a significant growth in enterprise computing. In a typical large enterprise, more than thousands major application systems are logically interconnected to support enterprise's business process. With the Internet technology growing explosively, most enterprise organizations adopt e-business strategy. Enterprises sometimes have to merge with other enterprises, reorganize their internal structure, and adopt new technologies and platforms as they strive for competitive advantages. Enterprise application integration (EAI) provides enterprises with the option to leverage their existing systems and integrate them with new applications to enhance functionality. Connector, which is a software component, is an essential layer in the EAI architecture. It provides connectivity between applications and integration server.; This thesis work investigates the area of EAI as a whole, which includes the driving forces behind the EAI, taxonomy of EAI, integration levels and architectures. Some currently used technologies such as message-oriented middleware, distributed objects, J2EE platform, XML family technologies and Web Services also examined. The main focus that this thesis is placed on is the connectivity layer of EAI. The aim of this thesis is to build a framework for simplifying and speeding up EAI connector development. The framework supports data level integration as well as application level integration. The extensibility of the EAI tool is enhanced by providing interoperability for applications written in non-object oriented programming languages like VB and Perl. |
