Overview of Model Driven Integration

Model Driven Integration (MDI) is radical new approach to significantly reducing the time and cost it normally takes to implement complex application integration.  Vanguard Technologies partners with the leading vendor for MDI - E2E Technologies. Their product is the E2E Bridge.  

This innovative technology eliminates the risks and major costs normally associated with IT integration projects by using UML models to describe the required integration and then implement the required integration by using a UML virtual machine to execute the UML models.  Because these models are executed directly, there is no code and because there is no code there is a significant reduction in integration, development and maintenance costs.

Furthermore, because UML models are self documenting and since the UML diagrams are in effect the application the result is that the documentation is the code and vice versa.  This makes it very easy to carry out design and maintenance changes to reflect modified requirements (reflecting say a new acquisition) and to implement them.

Problems with Integration
Organisations are today looking to deliver business functionality as a set of reusable utility components which can be quickly knitted together to provide new business capabilities to meet competitive challenges. Service Oriented Architecture is now perceived as one of principal means re-engineering their IT systems. 

At the same time organisation constantly acquiring new companies or being merged.  This leads to the requirement to integrate the disparate IT systems quickly if the competitive advantages claimed by the acquisitions and mergers are to be realised.
The systems integration market, including software and services, is estimated in 2006 at $200bn annually and growing at 18% per annum.

The problem is that systems integration projects rarely meets with expectations and over 50% of integration projects fail to deliver the required functionality and a similar amount go over budget and take significantly longer to complete than planned.

Invasive Programming and Communications – the major cause failure
The main reason for the problems with the traditional approach to systems integration is that a substantial amount of coding is required to adapt or replace the millions of lines of code within the applications.  This represents enormous risk and is time consuming and expensive.   

One of largest single problem with integration and other business transformation projects is failed communications between business analyst and those responsible for implementation. This communication problem due to a mismatch between the integration design and how it is implemented by the integration team.

UML Models for MDI SOA Integration
Model Driven Integration uses the UML modelling diagrams to model the required systems integration and delivers the completed integration as a set of SOA services.

Use Case diagrams are used to model requirements, roles, services and security. Class diagrams are used to model semantic mappings and associations of metadata – the E2E provide many wizards to automatically extra metadata such as SAP IDoc and BAPI t/RFC interface descriptors from SAP/R3 and populate Class Diagrams. Service logic and complex orchestrations are modelled using State and Activity diagrams.  Deployment diagrams are used to model the run time systems environments to the systems being integrated.    Sequence and Activity diagrams are used for service debugging.

Model Driven Integration Benefits
Model Driven Integration offers the following key benefits:

• Significant reduction in Integration Design risks.   The industry is replete with stories of integration projects that had failed after many years with costs of hundreds of millions of pounds.  There is a strong argument for the view that there was no way for the integration designers to verify the integration design before the major expense of programming the design had occurred.  By the time the integration design was found to be defective it was be too late.   With MDI, the UML models are in fact the design documentation and simultaneously the application code.  Since the UML models can be immediately executed within the E2E UML execution container all integration design risks are eliminated since there is no expensive and time consuming programming effort required to verify the design.
• Significant reduction in Integration Time and Costs. Today’s enterprise is in a constant state of flux as companies are merged and acquired, and encounter new and different competitors and market conditions.  Model Driven Integration allows a company to acquire companies and rapidly gain the benefits of the acquisition by using MDI to quickly integrate the acquired IT systems with its main IT systems. The massive savings caused by not having any programming code leads directly to very low integration implementation and maintenance costs.
• Rapid SOA Integration. Model Driven Integration and the E2E Bridge enables a company to rapidly integrate legacy applications seamlessly with new business functionality. Because the model is the code there is no invasive programming and no mismatch between design and implementation leading to rapid SOA development and integration.

Vanguard Model Driven Integration Services
Vanguard has formed a strategic VAR partnership with E2E Technologies to provide Model Driven Integration to clients who have business integration and transformation requirements. For further information on MDI and Vanguard MDI services contact: sales@vanguard-technologies.com