InFac: a mechanism to achieve systems integration

We describe how we achieve information systems integration (SI) in a university, based on our case study. As an introduction we briefly describe why SI is desirable, how others have achieved it and the uniqueness of our case study. We then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of existing mechanisms of SI and try to justify our approach. We conclude with suggestions on how our SI interface can help complement existing mechanisms. The university ISs are a mixture of both OO databases and relational databases systems. If all the IS were to be developed using object oriented technology, CORBA, an object request broker, would be able to handle all data and process requests. In our case, which is most common in other domains, information systems were developed using both relational databases as well as object oriented databases. CORBA only recognizes objects and not tables. Therefore, we need a conversion box that can accept objects and changes it to tables and vice versa. We call this conversion box-Integration Facilitator (InFac). It is designed to handle all transactions between each member IS and is transparent to all users. Transactions include all requests for information and also concurrent updates of common data/objects.