The Business Challenge
Integrating new e-business systems with existing back office applications presents the biggest challenge for web application developers. In general, only the larger companies have the budget and business justification to take on this task. Other companies are prepared to live with linking operations on a manual basis, usually involving the re-keying of data captured from one system for processing by another.
Even with money and motivation, ‘seamless integration’ is an elusive goal. Many organisations have opted to web-enable their back office applications. This may have benefits for existing users but does not usually result in a satisfactory solution that can be readily extended to suppliers and customers.
A preferred approach is to deploy purpose built web applications that are designed for front office use and are appropriately linked to back office systems. This usually requires design and development of a bespoke interface. Most importantly, this must ensure that opening up the application for Internet access does not compromise security.
Key Issues to Address
The problem with either approach is the support overhead in maintaining the link between the web front-end and the back-end application. These custom-built interfaces usually involve very low-level programming, requiring specialist expertise and long lead-times to make changes. In addition, any changes to the front office application may impact the back office system, and vice-versa, a syndrome known as ‘double maintenance’.
How Integrated Content Management Can Help
Integrated content management sets out to provide a sufficiently powerful and flexible infrastructure to exchange content whatever its source:
XML is an open industry standard which greatly assists in exchanging data and achieving interoperability between applications. In fact, CompleteContent makes extensive use of XML, including the structuring of content items. This readily facilitates integration with external databases, applications and other sources right to the core of the system, without the need for separate so-called integration servers.
