EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) covers every part of an enterprise system including business processes, architecture, hardware, software.
Business Process Integration (BPI). It is very important for a corporation to specify the processes involved in the interchange of enterprise information. „This allows organizations to streamline operations, reduce costs and improve responsiveness to customer demands.” This can include process management, process modeling and workflow. Here, we involve the combination of tasks, procedures, organizations,required input and output information, and tools needed for each step in a business process.
Application Integration: Here, the goal is to „bring data or a function from one application together with that of another application that together provide near real-time integration.” This can include, business-to-business integration, customer relationship management (CRM) systems which can be integrated with a company's backend applications, web integration, and building web sites that interact with multiple business systems.
Data Integration: If we want the above two integrations to succeed, we must also integrate the data involved. Its location must be identified, recorded, and a metadata model must be built (a master guide for various data stores). Now, data can be shared or distributed across database systems, providing it is in a standard format such as COM+/DCOM, CORBA, EDI, JavaRMI, and XML.
Platform Integration: Finally, the separate needs of the heterogeneous network must be integrated. Platform Integration deals with the processes and tools that are required to allow these systems to communicate, both optimally and securely, so data can be passed through different applications without difficulty.