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Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited. IRMAC Enterprise Application Integration Ken Dschankilic, Manager Integration Architecture April 16, 2003. Agenda. Who is Canadian Tire EAI Defined The Integration Problem Integration Frameworks Integration Design Patterns
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Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited IRMAC Enterprise Application Integration Ken Dschankilic, Manager Integration Architecture April 16, 2003
Agenda • Who is Canadian Tire • EAI Defined • The Integration Problem • Integration Frameworks • Integration Design Patterns • Dave Callingham’s EAI Components • Integration at Canadian Tire • Q & A
Today, we are an inter-related family of businesses Customer Count: 172.1MM Retail Sales: $5529.5MM Customer Count:8.7 million Retail Sales: $510.4MM Customer Count: 226.8MM Retail Sales: $7.4 Billion Customer Count: 1.7MM Retail Sales: $53.4MM Customer Count: 40.1MM Retail Sales: $911.9MM Customer Count: 4.2MM GOR: $352.3MM
Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited • $7 billion (CDN) - Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited is Canada’s most shopped retailer • More than 1,000 retail outlets (Canadian Tire Associate Stores, Gas Bars, Mark’s outlets) across Canada • More than 45,000 employees • More than 25 million customer transactions each year • 90% of Canadians shop at a Canadian Tire store, 40% are in our stores every week
Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited • Canadian Tire Petroleum is the country’s largest independent retailer of gasoline • 203 gas bars • 21 Simoniz car washes • Canadian Tire “Money” is the most widely recognized loyalty program in Canadian retail • Canadian Tire Financial Services is the largest non-bank issuer of MasterCard in Canada • Our website ended 2001 among the country’s top three e-commerce websites
What is Application Integration • Yankee Group; …the continuous process of improving the enterprises’ entire information technology base-applications, information, communications, and infrastructure to support the business. • Gartner Group says; “Application integration is defined as making independently designed application systems work together.” • Mercator; …EAI is the process of integrating different applications to enable an enterprise to communicate with a single voice.
The Integration Problem “Imagine if you didn’t have common electric outlets and plugs in your house, and every time you bought a new appliance, you had to wire up the appliance to the wires in your wall. And everybody’s wires in everybody’s walls were different. And everybody’s appliance wiring was different. That’s really the way it works today with trying to integrate business software applications.” - Paul Margolis, past chairman of the OAG, Inc.
The Integration Problem • Multiple, disparate applications • Multiple platforms • Multiple databases • Multiple transaction processors • Multiple data entry points • Multiple versions of the same data • Incompatible business data
Factors Contributing to the Problem • Application systems are built at different times by different groups operating independently of each other • Organizations are stuck w/ incompatible architectures and hard-to-maintain, but harder-to-eliminate legacy applications • Organizations are embracing a buy before build strategy that favours purchased application packages over internal development
screen scrape Sockets APPC IT’s Dirty Little Secret Application System B Extract Down load file Extract trans-action file Load Down load file Load Program Program Update Down load file Extract Load Database Replicator Program Extract Load Down load file Planning Systems Program Program Application System A Application System C
Integration Framework • Need a systematic approach to the problem • No E.F. Codd of Integration • No mathematical basis • No relevant academic leadership • Multiple Vendor Specific Frameworks • unlike DBMS marketplace where DB implementations are similar • Integration Software vendors have widely different implementation frameworks
Integration Framework • Standards only recently impact integration design patterns • in the DBMS marketplace, standards were established early in the development life cycle • in the Integration marketplace, only w/in the last 2 years have standards such as XML, Web Services emerged
Integration Framework • A Framework is required for integration: • Adapters • Transformation • Asynchronous messaging • Intelligent Routing • Business Process Management • Canonical Messages
Integration Patterns • 3 Main Patterns to solve the integration problems: • Data Consistency • asynchronous, loosely coupled • Multi-Step Business Process • asynchronous, loosely coupled • Composite Application Integration • synchronous, tightly coupled
Integration Framework Data ConsistencyPattern Add UPC 17988 Add prod 1234 Add prod 1234 Add item 050 1234
Integration Framework Multi-Step Business Processes Pattern Ship Notice 981126 Alloc Order 981126 Ship Notice 981126 Alloc Order 981126 StoreOrder 981126 StoreOrder 981126
Data Data Data Programs Programs Programs Integration Framework Browser Composite Application Pattern Legacy Applications Purchased application packages New code & data Check Credit Check Logistics Check Inventory Place Order
What needed to be fixed • Organization issues • where does the Competency Centre reside • who does the work • Methodology • no consistent way to document interfaces • Exception Management • escalation process of data issues….
Key Data Issues • Data Quality • Data Consistency • Data Ownership • Semantic Knowledge and Behaviour • Latency • Formats
Hub and Spoke Pattern Hub & Spoke Point to Point Hub and spoke organizing principles 1. Don’t connect anything directly to anything 2. Applications are autonomous and share no databases directly 3. Knowledge of interconnections removed from source and targets and moved to the hub Benefits 1. Operational simplification 2. Adaptation to change 3. Reuse leverage
CTC Integration Infrastructure • 2 Brokers are in place: • Homegrown Broker supports near-time integration patterns • Broker is MVS based using MQSeries to connect to applications on: • AS/400, NT, DEC/ALPHA, AIX, MVS • Mercator supports batch integration patterns • Mercator is used for most of the transformations • Bulk data movement is done using homegrown File Transfer/MQSeries
CTC Integration Infrastructure • 150+ interfaces • 40+ w/ re-usable objects (source/target/mapping objects) • 45 applications involved in integration with the Broker • Real-time messaging a combo of XML and ASCII payloads • 4000+ FT/MQ per day • 450+ Queue Managers
What Worked • Re-use of infrastructure • FT/MQ, Maps • Mercator for batch legacy data & recently XML, DB2 & MQ Adapters (95%) • Messaging - APIs (5%) • Methodology & Design Patterns • Competency Centre • IMS Bridge to unlock legacy transactions • Phased rollout - unplug old-turn on new functions at the hub
Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited IRMAC Enterprise Application Integration Ken Dschankilic, Manager Integration Architecture April 16, 2003