HttpCode

I’ve been doing some thinking around how MOSS can be integrated into a large and complex organisation, an organisation that has many disparate applications which act as an information silo. Most developers who are not intimately familar with MOSS will suggestion just using the page viewer web part if the external system is web based. The page viewer web part is basically an IFrame, so MOSS is in effect a window to the external application.

The benefits to this approach are:

• Low Cost – The external system has already been developed, so it’s not going to cost you anything significant in terms of developer hours. This is assuming that no technical hurdles exist in simply referencing the application via a page viewer. I’ll discuss the authentication issues in the disadvantages section.
• Quick – Its quick and easy to do, if you plan to redevelop your system to be MOSS aware, this is a good interim measure.

The disadvantages are:

• Systems remain isolated – You still have to maintain that existing system, this might be OK but, it’s likely to be mature and stable.
• The information is still in a silo – This continues from the last point,MOSS isn’t taking full advantage of the system, you can’t personalise the information from the system, you can’t drop a filter web part on the page and get the exact data your looking for. Sure you might be able to crawl the external site and provide it via the Search Centre, but can your users build a custom list and use this information in a way that makes sense to them?
• Authentication – How is your authentication handled, MOSS is just providing a window to the external application, your external system has to do all the heavy lifting in terms of authentication and authentication.
• Inconsistent User Experience – Your external system probably has its own navigation, style and theme that probably isn’t the same as the MOSS implementation that your trying to sell to your users. It has gives off this feeling that its all held together by sticky tape.

I think this approach is fine if you fully understand what your doing, I plan on discussing some of the other approaches in some upcoming posts.