The campus application network: an approach to application integration from Microsoft - Advertisement

University Business, July, 2003

In formation is the lifeblood of the higher education institution. As such, access to the most relevant, accurate and up-to-date information is integral to the success of any college or university in achieving its institutional mission. However, much of this information is housed in best-of-breed applications that do not necessarily share information with one another in the most efficient manner. This can hinder optimal performance and create barriers to information for students, faculty, staff, administrators and other constituents.

An effective and coordinated application integration strategy can help remove some of these information barriers and improve information flow. To that end, the Campus Application Network is an approach that enables colleges and universities to achieve long-term success by integrating their current applications and leveraging their existing investments.

In addition, large-scale information technology initiatives such as data warehouses and campus portals can be greatly enhanced by improved information flow resulting from the Campus Application Network approach.

The Campus Application Network approach from Microsoft enables institutions to achieve long-term success while integrating applications with minimal effort.

Microsoft QuickStart Sessions: Microsoft QuickStart Sessions are designed to help education institutions with expert technical services. The sessions start at the earliest stage of a deployment project and include Architecture Design Sessions and Proof of Concept Workshops.

Contact a Microsoft Partner: You can start exploring an end-to-end solution through a Solution Provider, or evaluate individual components for your integration solution from an independent software vendor. Microsoft Education partners are integral to the Campus Application Network vision by providing depth of expertise and industry leading solutions built on Microsoft technologies.

To learn more about Microsoft's efforts towards application integration in the educational environment, visit http://www.microsoft .com/education/?ID=EAIHigherEd.

Campus Application Network Enabling Technologies

The following provides an overview to the industry standards and technologies that enable the Campus Application Network integration approach.

Industry Standards

XML, an open standard for describing data, is one of the most important drivers of the Campus Application Network. XML provides a way for organizations to describe data that can then be passed through a Web server interface. This architecture enables a standards-based data interchange strategy for applications irrespective of operating system or database platform.

One standard that has gained wide popularity in higher education is the IMS Enterprise Specification (www.imsproject.org). IMS is helping to define the technical specifications for interoperability of applications and services in distributed learning. The Campus Application Network approach takes full advantage of these and other industry standards.

Adapters and Agents

Adapters or agents provide interoperability with a wide variety of applications and technologies. Microsoft and partners have built a range of adapters that serve to reduce the effort required to integrate systems across the Campus Application Network. If a standard adapter is not available, thin adapters or agents can be developed quickly and easily with an Agent Builder Kit that Microsoft provides for customers.

Orchestration and Messaging Engine

The Orchestration and Messaging Engine is used to coordinate and administer business processes across disparate applications of the Campus Application Network. Institutions can focus on defining, designing and deploying automated business processes that span applications and platforms. Adhering to a well-defined, formalized set of processes can enable higher education institutions to increase productivity and lower costs. There are a number of open industry standards such as the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) that are evolving for the orchestration of transactions and business logic across various applications.