Chapter 1. Overview of Oracle AIA

Application integration becomes the most common project in every enterprise and corporate. Integration is an important core component in IT systems. Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) is a framework based on a Service Oriented Architecture approach that provides proven methodologies and best practices for integrating application systems. However, before we jump into AIA, let's understand the need for an application integration and various integration methodologies.

Small and large enterprises invest in building various business systems and applications to facilitate business functions and growth. However, due to various technology advancements, most of the applications and business systems developed over a period are in different ages and capabilities. Many enterprises are quite successful with their business applications, but not very successful in collaborating the data and business functions. In earlier days, data collaboration between applications systems was through manual entry that lead to a lack of data integrity and human errors. In order to avoid the data integrity issue and human errors, most of the investments were made towards integrating business systems. Therefore, integration becomes one of the mandatory agendas in every quarter. Why is such an investment going towards that? It is because of the organization's growth, acquisition, partner relationships, lack of standards, and technology barriers.