Integration Services

Castle Rock Innovations specializes in bringing together existing (often disparate) subsystems into a whole to deliver the over-arching functionality, a practice known as System Integration. It's all about adding value to the system - capabilities that become possible because of interactions between subsystems.

Systems integration is the process of linking together different software applications physically or functionally utilizing a variety of techniques such as enterprise application integration (EAI), business process management (BPM) or custom programming.

We have a track record of successfully delivering integration solutions to our clients by employing a broad range of skills and a breadth of knowledge that enables our experts to grasp and manage the big picture. Using expertise including software engineering, interface protocols, and general problem solving, we deliver solutions that add real value.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

EAI is an integration framework composed of a collection of technologies and services which form a middleware to enable integration of systems and applications across the enterprise.

Our solutions link such applications within a single organization together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the greatest extent possible, while at the same time avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures.

One large challenge of EAI is that the various systems that need to be linked together often reside on different operating systems, use different database solutions and different computer languages, and in some cases are legacy systems that are no longer supported by the vendor who originally created them.

It's not just about sharing data between applications; it focuses on sharing both business data and business processes (see BPM).

EAI can be used for different purposes:

• Data (information) Integration: Ensuring that information in multiple systems is kept consistent. This is also known as EII (Enterprise Information Integration).
• Vendor independence: Extracting business policies or rules from applications and implementing them in the EAI system, so that even if one of the business applications is replaced with a different vendor's application, the business rules do not have to be re-implemented.
• Common Facade: An EAI system could front-end a cluster of applications, providing a single consistent access interface to these applications and shielding users from having to learn to interact with different software packages.

Business Process Management (BPM)

BPM can be used to understand organizations through expanded views that would not otherwise be available to organize and present. These views include the relationships of processes to each other which, when included in the process model, provide for advanced reporting and analysis that would not otherwise be available. BPM is regarded by some as the backbone of enterprise content management.

Because BPM allows organizations to abstract business process from technology infrastructure, it goes far beyond automating business processes (software) or solving business problems (suite). BPM enables business to respond to changing consumer, market, and regulatory demands faster than competitors - creating competitive advantage.

Benefits of using CRI's services

Properly managed and resourced, Systems Integration projects succeed. Castle Rock Innovations has the expertise to avoid potential pitfalls and deliver working solutions for our clients.

• Managing constant change
  Our methodology and dynamic project managers adapt plans and solutions as required to ensure successful completions.
• Advanced, future-ready architecture
  Our solutions are extensible and modular to allow for future changes.
• Attention to detail
  Our detailed analysis and mapping ensures that detailed information that is crucial later is not overlooked or lost.
• Technical expertise
  Integration solutions often involve multiple platforms, several databases, various 3rd party applications and/or proprietary applications built with different toolsets. Our team's broad experience and skill base enables us to deal with the most complex cases effectively.
• Best practices for project management
  Properly managing integration projects is key to their success. Applying our experience, we help our clients manage the process including accountability issues, dealing with department or system protectionism, defining objectives and measurements of success.