Avnet, for example, created a model to represent people, organizations, and business units -- as well as companies and relationships between companies and people -- to supplement LDAP profiles. This was crucial because it let Avnet track relationships between suppliers and customers, so, for instance, a customer who resells only Hewlett-Packard products couldn't see IBM product pricing.

Linking inside and out

Avnet initially focused on simplifying the integration of its many internal systems. Rip-and-replace was out of the question because of the high cost. But Chapman also wanted to reduce the cost and complexity of maintaining existing point-to-point connections.

The answer was to leverage Avnet's investment in webMethods middleware, replacing point-to-point connectors with generalized services that ensured any change to either a process or data model was consistently applied to all systems around the globe. "The goal was to represent common business processes across different suppliers," Chapman says. The architecture team mapped out the functions in all of the legacy systems to determine the capabilities, inconsistencies, and gaps. Then developers began creating services to handle translation, fill in missing pieces, and otherwise ensure common functionality across all systems. Essentially, Avnet pursued systems integration via services.

Chapman had always envisioned extending the same approach to external clients, since he expected them to use multiple channels to interact with Avnet when the e-commerce offering went live. But that day came sooner than expected, when HP, a major client, said in early 2000 that it wanted Avnet to support the RosettaNet e-commerce protocols. "That exposed the need to change our internal systems infrastructure," Chapman recalls. The company still relied on direct connections to and from its clients, with individual APIs for each. To do RosettaNet right, that needed to change.