enterprise APIs Smarter Way... · Overcoming Barriers to Enterprise Integration ... discovering and running COM and XML as supported by the SYSPRO e.net API ... management decisions

the smarter

way to

manage enterprise

APIs for

SYSPRO

ebook

eBook Chapter Menu

1. Overview……………………………………………………….………. 3

2. Overcoming Barriers to Enterprise Integration…………..…………. 4

3. Working with Mobile APIs……………………………….…………… 9

4. Accelerating Syspro Integration……………….………….……….. 10

5. Leveraging Space Based Architecture…………………………….. 13

6. Essentials of Integration Security………………….……………… 17

7. Best Practices for Choosing API Integration Services……….…. 21

8. Integration Gap Analysis Checklist……………………………….. 22

Overview

To find the smarter way to extend enterprise apps, you need to look at what the most effective IT organizations do to manage the challenges of API integration complexity, security, scalability, and resource demands. This ebook includes the Integration Gap Analysis Checklist.

Four (4) keys to

overcoming barriers to

enterprise integration

APIs are by nature designed to facilitate

movement of data and triggering of processes that are both inbound and outbound. Each API is capable of doing this for its particular domain. APIs conform to internal data definitions and application designs but not external ones. While they may take information in and out in a simplified representation or format, such as a RESTful API using HTTP protocol, the syntax of the notation is always unique and possibly even proprietary. This generates domain dissonance between APIs. APIs by themselves are not enough. APIs require intermediation to work with one another.

Event Driven

Architecture Since APIs do not have

mutual awareness, an integration platform for API management should use Event Driven Architecture (EDA) that allows business process orchestration to occur according to business rules. Event triggers, event polling and scheduling should coexist with messaging approaches such as publish and subscribe, store and forward, acknowledge on delivery, and request and reply.

Data

Transformation Since APIs do not have

common data definition languages, data mapping and transformation are required elements of an integration platform. Choose a system that supports everything from flat files, XML and databases to flow variables, operational metadata stores and user defined storage for both source and destination. Transformation expressions should include numeric, string and logical functions and operators.

Trans-Protocol

Processing Since APIs do not all use

the same transport mechanisms or protocols, use of an integration platform will overcome communication barriers between systems. An integration platform should provide communication via SOAP and REST Web Services, messaging queues (JMS, MSMQ, Websphere MQ Series), and other transport protocols (EDI, HTTP, FTP) and component architecture environments (.NET, COM, J2EE, etc.)

Process

Notation Since APIs are not self

documenting and are not

easily understood by

business users, an API

integration platform should

provide excellent process

notation and business

process modeling tools.

Models generally fall into

two categories: reference

notation and executable

notation. Finding the right

balance between fine-

grained and coarse-grained

services in the object

modeler will enable

business process designs to

come together most

efficiently.

Working With Mobile APIs

• Mobile APIs fall into three categories: • Mobile client-side APIs

• Mobile server side APIs

• Enterprise application mobile support APIs

• Mobile client-side APIs allow you to extend and enhance the capabilities of your mobile app using an API, such as a bar code scanning API.

• Mobile server-side APIs allow the application server to communicate using mobile protocols, such as an SMS communications API.

• Enterprise application mobile support APIs allow an enterprise application to interact with a mobile protocol, such as geo-location data sent from (or to) a mobile device with GPS.

Does SYSPRO have an API?

• Yes, SYSPRO ERP supports interfaces and integration through a variety of methods depending on version and requirements:

• SYSPRO e.net provides a variety of XML interfaces covering essential areas of ERP functionality and data including:

• Sales Order Query

• Sales Order Posting

• AR Posting

• AR Query

• System Setup

• System Query

• PO Query

• PO Posting

• AP Posting

• AP Query

• Inventory Posting

• Inventory Query

What are the best methods to work with the

SYSPRO APIs?

• With SYSPRO, try to find a connector that supports finding,

discovering and running COM and XML as supported by the

SYSPRO e.net API.

What does an integration platform need to

operate with SYSPRO?

• An integration platform designed to work with SYSPRO will have the following capabilities: • Ability to call and reply to COM objects.

• Ability to transform, format and transport XML.

• Ability to composite application logic including .NET, and COM.

• Ability to monitor directories, parse XML files and perform basic CRUD operations on XML files.

• Business Process Modeling.

• Business Process Orchestration (Real-time, asynchronous and scheduled).

• Automated Data Mapping and Transformation.

• Business Process Monitoring.

• Enterprise Security Compliance including optional deployment behind firewall (on-premise).

• Enterprise-Grade Scalability.

• SOA compliance and comprehensive technology protocol and adapter library.

• Mobile support for multiple platforms (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows).

Leveraging three (3) Secrets of Space Based

Architecture for more scalable API messaging

dynamic scaling colocation write behind

Elastic

Partitioning

and

User Spaces

In-Memory

Data Grid

(IMDG)

Mirror

Service

Dynamic Scaling

• Using a middleware with an in-memory data grid allows APIs to be served by multiple server processes running on multiple machine instances (physical or virtual). A Space works together to store large amounts of data in memory and achieve high performance, dynamic scaling, and fail-safe redundancy. Data and business logic in the Space replicate and partition across all machines in the data grid, providing high availability even when machines or software fails.

Leveraging three (3) Secrets of Space Based Architecture for more scalable API messaging

Co-location

• With co-location of data and processing, API processes execute as they enter the system. This reduces multiple network hops and the overhead of serialization and de-serialization. Co-location reduces transport requirements, thereby aiding elasticity through straightforward scalability and maintenance. Real time clients are served by in-memory data aggregators and counters.

Leveraging three (3) Secrets of Space Based Architecture for more scalable API messaging

Write Behind

• In-Memory Computing that leverages write-behind should provide reliable asynchronous persistency. This approach allows you to asynchronously delegate the operations conducted with an In-Memory-Data-Grid (IMDG) into a backend database, significantly reducing the performance overhead. Use write behind to avoid the performance disadvantages normally associated with writing information to a database. Integration API metadata archived in a data store should be saved in background batch processes (write-behind or archiving).

Leveraging three (3) Secrets of Space Based Architecture for more scalable API messaging

APIs and the four (4)

essentials of Integration

Security

• Review the APIs to be used in your integration scenario for compliance with security practices for user authentication. Acceptable approaches may include passing software-specific application user authentication or status from the source event to the destination API, using LDAP and Active Directory, or similar approaches to authenticate and identify the in a particular business process integration flow.

Essential # 1: User Authentication

APIs and the four (4)

essentials of Integration

Security

• Review the APIs to be used in your integration scenario for compliance with security practices for user rights. Normally, the user rights are assigned and ,managed in each enterprise system. These may be assigned to individual users or to an integration server acting as a generic user. If access to the triggering application is secure, then it is generally safe to assign group rights to the integration server. Solving user access issues at the application level for each application is the best way to manage user authentication and security.

Essential # 2: User Rights

APIs and the four (4)

essentials of Integration

Security

• All middleware layers that interface

with an Application API must be

validated for their ability to employ

both encryption and decryption for

data and metadata. Generally,

middleware should support multiple

options for secure encryption such as

the RSA, DES3, BLOWFISH, RC4,

RC5, RC2, IDEA and CAST methods.

For a discussion of selecting the best

methods for your situation, see Magic xpi Security Topic: Encryption/Decryption.

Essential # 3: Ciphers

APIs and the four (4)

essentials of Integration

Security

• All middleware layers that interface with an Application API must be validated for their ability to provide an audit trail for traceability. The best practice approach to meeting this requirement will include capabilities for individual business process flow metadata, user logging and encrypted data attachments with date/time stamping. Monitors and logs may become useful for transparency and traceability in IT, financial and forensic audits.

Essential # 4: Audit

Three (3) best practices

for choosing API

integration services

• Evaluating your integration services

provider is an important part of

selecting an integration platform for

your API integration project. Be

intentional about evaluating your

services provider for support

capabilities, training offering and

overall integration experience.

Compare Service Offerings to Your

Circumstances

Service Requirements Definition

Formal definition of services needed from consulting,

project management,

implementation, testing,

documentation, training and review

perspectives.

Compare fixed-price versus time

and material approaches. Is

vendor willing to use your staff in the

project? Do they offer mentoring and take a collaborative

approach?

Determine service provider flexibility. Are they willing to

provide services as desired on-site, off-site, near-shore or off-shore? If not, why? What is the

process for change requests?

Thoroughly Evaluate Support, Training and

Experience

tech

nic

al su

pp

ort

• thorough documentation

• direct vendor telephone support

• formal online service request and response mechanism

inte

gra

tio

n tra

inin

g

• classroom courses

• online training

• formal curriculum

• mentoring

imp

lem

en

tatio

n e

xp

erie

nce

• defined but flexible methodology

• reference accounts

• experienced in wide range of APIs

Look for ERP Domain Expertise

While integration platform vendors will tend to have extensive API

integration experience, they may need to team with local service providers

experienced in your particular ERP system. The combination of local ERP

expertise and direct vendor integration support is often an ideal combination

in support of an API integration project.

Integration Gap Analysis Checklist

Implementing an interface between two

different enterprise systems requires

careful preparation. Before one can begin

an ERP integration project, preliminary

tasks need to be performed including

assembling an integration team, selecting

integration methodologies and performing a

gap/fit analysis.

Creating an integration interface between

two systems, such as SYSPRO ERP and

3rd Party ERP, CRM, HCM, SCM, PLM, or

even a Web Service such as a payroll

interface or shipment tracking Web Service,

requires an extensive understanding of the

various systems to be implemented.

Preliminary Actions

• If you are the project lead, you should make certain you have executive sponsorship so that you can get the cooperation you need from both IT and line-of-business (LOB) departments. Your sponsor will be key to making sure you’ve set aside sufficient resources. Some of those resources may need to be used to ensure you or members of your team have sufficient training. Alternatively, some work may be performed by external consultants. While this may reduce some of the requirements for extensive knowledge of the target applications to be integrated, you still need a strong enough background to make the management decisions necessary to guide the project forward successfully. In addition to training, you’ll want to assemble the vendor documentation needed by your team. Documentation will be key to identifying data formats of the systems to be interfaced.

Assembling the Team

• Project Leader. The project leader assembles the other team

members, leads the team to a decision on implementation

methodology, selects team members to fulfill the other roles on the

project, and guides the project implementation forward through the

business analysis, integration design, testing, deployment, user

acceptance and training phases.

• Technical lead. The technical lead will be responsible for

developing the interface using the selected integration methodology

for SYSPRO and the target integration environment.

• SYSPRO Functional Lead. The SYSPRO functional lead is

generally responsible for the SYSPRO implementation at your

company and contributes to the business analysis and use case

development. The lead should know about the steps involved in the

SYSPRO business processes to be automated and integrated.

• Enterprise Security Architect. A member of the team will need to

take the lead for ensuring that enterprise policies for security are

enforced. The integration methods selected should comply with

enterprise requirements for user authentication, user rights and

encryption/decryption of exchanged data during transport.

• Database administrator (DBA). The DBA(s) involved will be

responsible for table maintenance, SQL, stored procedures, and

other technical aspects of the data environment.

• Target System Functional Lead. The functional lead for the

system(s) to be integrated (regardless of whether the target system

is CRM, PLM, SCM, eCommerce, etc.) will also need to be involved

if available. The lead should know about the steps involved in the

business processes to be automated and integrated.

Establish the Scope

• Once the team has been assembled, the scope of the integration project should be defined. I recommend that the first project incorporate the minimum number of business process flows necessary for the job. Once successes are achieved by the team, additional business processes can be identified and rolled out as desired.

• When using an integration platform methodology for business process integration between SYSPRO and your target system, the gap and fit analysis will be augmented by automated means such as automated business function selections and data mappers.

• Regardless, the gap/fit analysis is a crucial step in your integration project. In this step, you will identify data mismatches and the corresponding transformations that must occur. Data mapping in the Magic xpi Integration Platform allows you to apply functions that transform data through the use of logical, numeric and textual functions.

Look at the Gap from a

Functional Viewpoint

• Take time to analyze your process from a functional standpoint. Who is responsible for the SYSPRO data and the third-party data: finance, human resources, marketing? What are the business processes involved? Identify the process, transactions and data flows. Use a business process editor and a detailed integration flow editor to chart the steps in the integration. Carefully identify and define data movements and transformations for all steps in the process. In doing so, you will find data elements in common between SYSPRO and your target system. Determine the common elements in SYSPRO and their relationships to the data in the integrated system. Specify the exact field mapping and data translation required.

Look at the Gap from a

Technical Viewpoint

• Take time to analyze your process

from a functional standpoint. Identify

the SYSPRO API functions, tables

and fields. Likewise, identify the

specific API functions, table

structure and fields in the target

system. Consult documentation as

needed and incorporate information

obtained into your project. Identify

any gaps in the data. Isolate

differences between SYSPRO and

the target system. Define any

business logic, lookups, data

transformations, exceptions flows or

other functions needed.

Examining the Integration Requirements of

Third Party Systems in Detail

File formats. Define file formats required for import such as comma separated values or physical sequences. Identify any optional fields of types. Obtain recommendations for greatest transactional integrity.

Data Transport. What data transport methods are supported by the third-party API? REST or SOAP Web Services? JMS? MSMQ? ADO.NET code? RPG calls?

Record Layouts. Identify the required data file layouts. What data, metadata and parameters is the other system expecting with each transfer of data? Do the two systems use different formats for dates? Are certain fields expected to have padded or buffered zeroes? What other special formatting requirements need to be intermediated? What other data disambiguation is required?

Event Definitions. Identify the triggers that will initiate data flows. How often do processes need to run? Will they need to be synchronous or asynchronous?

Partial vs. Full Updates. Does the target system require an entire file or just record updates?

Naming Conventions. Decide upon file naming conventions. If Directory Scans are being performed to check for file updates, what are the file names and paths?

Security and Data Privacy. Does the data need to be segregated, synchronized or archived in a particular fashion in order to be in compliance? Should data files in the integration flow be archived as part of a regulatory record keeping requirement or encrypted or erased to meet privacy regulations?

Key Data. What are the key data fields or unique identifying records that will sync the two systems together?

Mandatory Fields. Identify mandatory fields and desired optional fields. Can some data be excluded from the integration process? Does the business scenario alter what data is required (therefore requiring parametric or conditional logic)?

Examining the Integration Requirements of

Third Party Systems in Detail

File Length Limitations. Does either system impose file length limitations on the number of fields

or records?

User Defined Fields. Has either system implemented user defined fields? (Almost certainly yes!)

Are these well documented? If not, undertake a process of discovery to determine the UDF

structure of your system databases. How will user defined fields be handled by the other system?

Do user defined fields need to be created in order to accept other data from the third-party system?

Validation and Exceptions. Identify any data validation and exceptions processes performed by

either system upon import/export of data. Is an exceptions file created? How will these exceptions

be handled? Do the systems generate error conditions or messages? How will these be trapped

and handled? If data validation is not handled by the API, what validation checks do you need to

add to your integration business logic to avoid introducing errors or bad data?

Logging. What steps in the business process need to be logged and measured for latency, volume

and completion accuracy (errors)?

Process Responsibility. For processes that are triggered by user interaction, posting or closing

activities, how will the users be trained on any necessary changes to their work routines and

schedules, Do alarms, alerts and escalations need to be built into the integration flow. Does human

workflow need to be automated? Will email notifications, in-application tasks or third party human

workflow tools be invoked? Who is responsible and who manages those responsible? What is the

chain of escalation and how much automation is required or expected?

Long Running Processes. Are there any long-running processes required? What business rules

will apply for neglected workflow or abandoned business processes?

Setting Up the Sandbox. You will need to set up a test environment or sandbox with non-

production test data. Are there tools available for stress testing in the sandbox environment?

Integration between SYSPRO and the third-

party system will involve detailed data mapping.

Implement your data mapping using the

information gathered during the functional and

technical gap/fit analyses. Data mapping always

involves at least one source and at least one

destination.

Analyze your ERP transactions; carefully

identify the relationships between these

transactions and the requirements of the third-

party system.

Perform the Data Mapping

34

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