Adding Value: The Challenge of Platform and Package Interfaces

Abstract

As you add components to existing applications can you "Plug and Play" or is the situation more like, "If it doesn't fit, force it?" As a way to give added value to its customers, Arizona State University Information Technology has found ways to extend or enhance its legacy applications. Solutions have come from purchased packages and from in-house development. Regardless of how the new functions are provided, developers are spending significant time in interfacing the existing system with the new enhancement. Developers have become system integrators. This paper reviews lessons learned from recent projects at Arizona State University.

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