BEA Systems has unveiled SmartConnect 3.0 software, which eases enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration by making it easier to plug ERP applications into a service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA extends ERP deployments by allowing, for example, invoices and statements to be shared across the Internet and company-wide intranets, or making it easier for companies to integrate financial systems with those of merged or newly acquired companies. The architecture consists of chunks of software (services) with standards-based interfaces that can communicate with each other and be reused in a variety of composite apps and business processes.

SmartConnect lets companies do away with adapters–proprietary code supplied by ERP vendors–to integrate ERP apps. Instead it “exposes” ERP business logic as a shared service for use by other business applications and processes. “With traditional adapters, connectivity is an isolated component, making it difficult to share across implementations. SmartConnect turns connectivity into a shared service [under SOA] with all the benefits of reuse and lower cost of ownership,” said Quinton Wall, senior product marketing manager at BEA.

Adapter-based integration approaches suffer from a number of problems, such as lack of performance and quality and inability to perform data format customization. “SmartConnect provides native transports to unlock information buried in packaged apps without the associated issues of previous adapter-based strategies,” Wall says.