Legacy System Integration using a Grammar-Based Transformation System

Abstract

Enterprise information system management is the operation of different corporate databases, applications, and more and more often of integration and interoperability of legacy systems, acquired through mergers and acquisitions. These legacy systems produce structured or semi-structured data that add to the vast amounts of data a company generates every day. This data needs to be communicated between heterogeneous systems within the same company and eventually beyond the company’s walls. Transformations of communicated data are required to enable companies to tightly integrate their systems into a cohesive infrastructure without changing their applications and systems. This article presents a transformation system that uses a grammar-based approach to provide direct integration of applications and systems at the data level. Sequences of transformations allow flexible and effective exchange of data between heterogeneous systems resulting in a single information network.