Why do people continue to fall for the idea of "pre-built" adapters? I guess that's pretty obvious. Anything you really want to believe in, you can. Unfortunately, it doesn’t follow that believing in something makes it so.
Dick: Ok, guys, have you figured out how we're going to get this Salesforce/SAP integration done in time for me to meet the VP's deadline?Harry: I've been online all week studying the possibilities. I saw Adapters from three companies that look really good.
Dick: Come on, we've been down this road before.
Harry: Right, but things have changed! The latest Adapters work immediately off the shelf! Let me show you the videos on the one that looks like it has the most customers… (beep .. "Hello - Welcome to Something SOA Great's web site. I am about to show you the latest thing since…")
Harry and Dick watch, enthralled. Tom stands behind them with a frown, rolling his eyes.
Dick: If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it.
Tom: Hmm. I've seen it and I don’t believe it.
Harry: Don’t be obstructionist. You just saw that SSG's Adapter automatically connected to both Salesforce and SAP. All the mapping is already built in, so we don't have to even know what the data fields are. You know what that means - we don’t have to deal with those know-it-all data analysts.
Dick: We could just download it and be off to the races to make the deadline with time to spare.
Tom: And what if we need to use custom field in Salesforce?
Harry: Didn't you see that they have 10,000 Adapters in their library? And fifty different versions of this one, so we can look for the closest fit. Then we can tweak it just a little bit to fit what we need. They said they have tools for that.
Dick: Let's do it!
Tom: I need a vacation. Have fun.
So Harry downloaded the Adapter to his desktop.
Harry: Here we go! I'll install here and get it up and running.
Adapter: /very faint chuckle/
Harry doesn’t hear. He’s reading the on-screen instructions.
Harry: OK, I'm connecting to SAP
Two weeks later
Harry: Now I'm connecting to Salesforce…
Two weeks later
Harry: I think I'm going crazy. I keep hearing this noise that's getting louder every day. But I digress. Here we go - let me try running this beast.
Adapter: BANG! CRASH ! HA! HA! HA! /hysterical laughter that can be heard all the way to the VP's office/
Tom is back from a month’s vacation overseas; He runs to Harry’s cube to see what's going on.
Tom: AARGH! What's going on here? .. Oh, no! The Adapter is squirting SAP data out the port all over the desk!
Dick: /loudly/ Not again! Everyone to their stations! Call 911! Call the auditors! Call OSHA!
Tom: Unplug something before someone drowns in this big pile of SAP Data.
As the VP arrives at the scene, a cloud forms near the ceiling, creeping out to the hallway. A final Guffaw from Adapter, and the light mist of Salesforce data turns into a terrible storm
------------ End of Same Story, 23rd time around ---------------
What is it that we all want so very badly from Adapters?
So Harry downloaded the Adapter to his desktop.
Harry: Here we go! I'll install here and get it up and running.
Adapter: /very faint chuckle/
Harry doesn’t hear. He’s reading the on-screen instructions.
Harry: OK, I'm connecting to SAP
Two weeks later
Harry: Now I'm connecting to Salesforce…
Two weeks later
Harry: I think I'm going crazy. I keep hearing this noise that's getting louder every day. But I digress. Here we go - let me try running this beast.
Adapter: BANG! CRASH ! HA! HA! HA! /hysterical laughter that can be heard all the way to the VP's office/
Tom is back from a month’s vacation overseas; He runs to Harry’s cube to see what's going on.
Tom: AARGH! What's going on here? .. Oh, no! The Adapter is squirting SAP data out the port all over the desk!
Dick: /loudly/ Not again! Everyone to their stations! Call 911! Call the auditors! Call OSHA!
Tom: Unplug something before someone drowns in this big pile of SAP Data.
As the VP arrives at the scene, a cloud forms near the ceiling, creeping out to the hallway. A final Guffaw from Adapter, and the light mist of Salesforce data turns into a terrible storm
------------ End of Same Story, 23rd time around ---------------
What is it that we all want so very badly from Adapters?
- Off-the-shelf solution
- Effortless integration between two endpoints
- No need to program complex mapping and business rules
- No need to know the technical aspects of connecting with either endpoint
- No need to have domain or business knowledge in either endpoint application.
- No need for a data analysts to be involved
- A perfect fit with both endpoints
What makes that impossible?
- Almost every implementation of an endpoint is customized or changes over time
- Your selection of source data is different from what is in the adapter
- Your other endpoint also has been customized
- Your business rules don’t match what's there already
- Write code to be able to feed the data to the adapter the way it expects to see it ( a full integration in itself!)
- Write code to adjust the manipulation and fit to the customized endpoint
- Open up the adapter, if possible, and add code to modify the business and mapping rules.
- Working at most once off the shelf
- Good experience in re-working code
- Opportunity to practice emotion control
- Incentive to find an alternative.
The alternative:
Connectivity must be designed in such a way that the re-usable parts are solid, and reusable for every instance of a source or destination. Decoupling the business rules from the technical business rules and the connectivity improves reusability. This is the model used by agile integration software. AppComms Removing Splints from Octopus
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