BEA Helps Beat Integration Blues

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.