Integration concept

iCore Integration Suite makes it possible to implement a genuine Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), which is characterized by free-standing, independent components combined through "loose coupling".

One major benefit of SOA is that the organization can reuse existing applications to a greater extent and therefore respond faster to change requests. These benefits are attributed to several critical elements of SOA:

  • The services reflect logical business activities.
  • New services can be created and added to existing services without affecting the existing service implementations. 
  • The services communicate by standard protocols providing broader interoperability. 
  • SOA encloses legacy systems (existing, often older applications) and processes so that the effectiveness of existing investments is preserved and may even be increased. 
  • Services have an interface and are message-oriented. 
  • SOA provides a platform for the technology and business departments in your company to meet common goals of the modern enterprise.

A sustainable, well-defined and comprehensive SOA is implemented incrementally – step by step, and sometimes with very small steps indeed. With iCore Integration Suite, you can:

  • Configure loosely coupled information flows – iCIS allows you to design integration flows using a generic XML-format between the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and the application to be integrated. Loosely coupled components enable reuse.
  • Expose composite services to the ESB – Designing composite services results in less complexity and less transaction traffic.
  • Test with real-life conditions – iCore lets you set up a test environment, parallel to the production environment, where you can run new and modified integration flows (using real-life data) before going live in the production environment.
  • Select the ESB that suits you – iCore Accelerators work with any ESB (IBM, BizTalk, Tibco etc., iCore Process Server). Should you change your mind at a later stage, it is easy to reconnect your Adapterflows to another ESB – at any time.

Internal integration

To create internal efficiency you have to allow digital communication in all parts of your organization. To obtain the advantages of e-business, it is important to always aim at integration with the in-house applications, such as the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems, accounting systems, logistics execution, etc. Integration creates in-house efficiency and reduces the risk of dealing with redundant information. iCIS provides one single platform, independent of geographical location, for integration of the company’s various systems and applications. If integration requires database connections or unique file formats, iCIS will manage it all smoothly.

External integration

From one single platform, iCIS manages external communication with any partner, irrespective of the format required. The information can be sent or received in XML, EDIFACT or any other customer-unique file format.

For example, iCIS can control the in- and outgoing communication of the web shop and execute the dialog with the in-house business applications. There are no restrictions on how the information is transmitted (ISDN, X.25, VPN, etc) or what communication protocols (FTP, HTTP, SMTP, etc) are used.