Portals and EAI Readings Week 12

Information Systems Integration - IS Portals vs. EAI EAI – links and stores information between applications (the BACK-END) Portal – lets the user collect, summarize and display the data in a specified format (the FRONT-END)

Information Systems Integration - IS Generations of Portals (Gartner, 2001) Generation One – delivers content to users Generation Two – includes application execution and integration features; scaleable and flexible enough to work in an enterprise environment Generation Three – “…abstraction layer [that] allows you to navigate within contexts from any piece of information to any other piece of information related to it, no matter what application it is coming from.” (Agassi, 2001) Move towards multiple portals (Friewald, 2001)

Information Systems Integration - IS Why Portals? Organize mass of unstructured information available Can be managed and maintained by end users rather than IT staff

Information Systems Integration - IS Where Do Portals and EAI Meet? Portal – a presentation manager; what the user sees Provides some way to gather information from disparate sources and integrate into summary format Solves the integration problem for users Combine security, personalization, technology, and access EAI – integrates and synchronizes information between one or more systems Partnerships between companies with portal/EAI skill sets are emerging

Information Systems Integration - IS How Much Do Portals Cost? From $250K to $1.5M (Letson, 2001) May use ROI to justify investment Improvements in efficiency and effectiveness Better customer satisfaction Viador example (Letson, 2001) Project with US DOE Links banks, universities, and students to financial aid information Greatly reduces paperwork

Information Systems Integration - IS Links to e-Business Creates a more efficient means of communicating between organizations and people Portals provide access to information that otherwise would not be available

Information Systems Integration - IS Current Trends in Portals (Kao, 2001) Integrates front- and back-office employees Links information from intranets, extranets, and Internet sites Ease of access to the Internet

Information Systems Integration - IS Choices for e-Business Custom development Point solution Enterprise integration portals (EIPs) Provide access to data from multiple sources (i.e., different databases, different formats) Designed for read-only access Cannot coordinate among multiple application functions EAI – ties multiple organizations together, but may not have a Web interface

Information Systems Integration - IS Enterprise Application Portals (EAPs) Integrates applications into a unified portal interface Can tailor to individuals’ needs Can enable B2B e-commerce, e-Customer service, supply chain management, e-CRM, and e- Procurement (Kao, 2001)

Information Systems Integration - IS A Good EAP (Kao, 2001) Application and vendor-neutral Able to integrate Workflow enabled Flexible Extensible Portable Scalable Native Internet Secure ********