Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Computing

First Advisor

Dr. Jeanne Stynes

Second Advisor

Dr. Günter Turetschek

Abstract

Systems integration is hard work; different architectures with different interfaces and an innumerable amount of Legacy applications with non-standard interfaces exist. However the needs to meet changing business requirements and to implement faster and optimised procedures within an enterprise and in cooperation with other external enterprises mean that there is a continuing demand for such integration strategies and products. Integration was often an activity separate from system development and could not be accomplished without re-involving system designers and developers. Such a process is therefore inefficient and costly. This thesis proposes a process-oriented integration strategy that combines the tasks of integration and business process modelling. This approach means that systems can be integrated without conventional programming and without changing the systems involved. Systems specialists are not required, which results in quicker and more cost-effective systems integration. As proof of concept a set of tools is built that can be used to integrate systems without considering technical details. Access to all component systems is possible using a uniform format. The tool kit can be used mainly in the area of Web Services, but other architectures and application systems can also be supported by using appropriate adapters, examples of which are included. The toolkit is tested in a product data management environment in a project that aims to connect two different server systems, SAP and a product data management system called OpenPDM.

Comments

Submitted to the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, October 2004

Access Level

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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