EAI's Impact on Enterprise Architecture and How to Handle It

Today large companies often have to cope with complex and heterogeneous IT infrastructures. A recent approach to this issue is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). EAI provides a platform for business process oriented system integration. The aim of EAI is to consolidate the number of point to point interfaces of integrated applications in a centralized hub and spoke architecture. In contrast to former middleware approaches EAI provides integration not only on a technical level but on a business process level too. According to this we consider EAI as an architectural element affecting IT as well as organizational issues and thus Enterprise Architecture. Hence EAI again raises the question for interdependencies between IT and organization. In a study we analyzed how EAI is used in large-scale companies and which effects it has on the Enterprise Architecture of those companies. The results illustrate that EAI is a major component in complex IT infrastructures which has a significant influence on business processes. But the study also shows that there is a considerable gap between the importance of EAI in Enterprise Architecture and the way it is used in companies today. As a result EAI as it is used today may provide a way to connect IT systems but it is hardly capable of handling architecture's complexity. Eventually this article points out what has to be done to move toward a manageable enterprise architecture.