The advances in distributed computing and interconnected networks have made possible efficiently and cost-effectively linking people, isolated systems, computing resources, and information across business constituent units in an organization, resulting in substantially increasing the overall business process automation and productivity in the organization. As the world has witnessed in last several decades or so, distributed computing and interconnected networks have radically transformed the research and development, operations, and management in enterprise integration. Integrating isolated heterogeneous and complex enterprise systems becomes a trend. A solid knowledge of the evolution of computing and networks technologies helps create a solid technical foundation, which accordingly helps get a solid understanding of the necessity of applying right approaches and technologies in conducting business oriented enterprise integration in practice. A brief review of the evolution of computing and networks technology becomes necessary. In this chapter, the concept of computing is first discussed. The fundamentals of software applications are then introduced. Then, networking technologies and distributed computing are explored. Finally, the evolution of programming models applicable for enterprise integration is fully discussed.
Enterprise Integration Engineering as an Enabler for Business Process Management