eC-BP.org - The Evolution and Convergence of EDI and EAI

The Evolution and Convergence of EDI and EAI

Written by Administrator

Wednesday, 01 July 2009

As a long time service provider in the EDI and EAI (business and data integration) arena, we have experienced the integration toolset and terminology evolution. Those that have been in the business and data integration world for the last 10 to 15 years know today’s world is similar to that of the past, yet in many other ways today is very different.
(By Brad Loetz - REMEDI Electronic Commerce Group)

Organizations (hubs) implementing EDI in the 1980s and 1990s did it for differential advantage and to gain efficiencies. Others (spokes) implemented it because it was a condition of doing business with large organizations. The tools used by both were single purpose software packages capable of taking business system data and standard format transactional data (X12 or EDIFACT) and mapping from one layout to the other. No conditional processing, table lookups, extended rule features, etc. existed at that time, and only appeared as EDI mapping utilities matured over the years. Even communication software to send/receive data files were separate from the translator. Any complex massaging of data had to be done in pre or post translation routines which were developed outside the translator.

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