Integration is an activity that unites people, equipments, programs but also managerial practices and helps a company to put its knowledge into good use. In Romania, more and more private companies choose to have integrated systems to help them grow. Public owned companies and institutions, for example The National House of Pensions and Other Social Insurance Right, invested large amounts of founds in the development of new information systems to help them gather, process and disseminate data from the population.integration, information systems, standards, data integration, application integration

Iuliana BOTHA

Vlad DIACONITA

English

Research Papers in Economics

Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 3 (43)/2007  96 
The Level of Information Systems Integration in Romania 
 
Vlad DIACONIŢA, Bucharest, Romania, Diaconita.Vlad@csie.ase.ro
Iuliana BOTHA, Bucharest, Romania, Iuliana.Botha@ie.ase.ro
 
Integration is an activity that unites people, equipments, programs but also managerial prac-
tices and helps a company to put its knowledge into good use. In Romania, more and more 
private companies choose to have integrated systems to help them grow. Public owned com-
panies and institutions, for example The National House of Pensions and Other Social Insur-
ance Right, invested large amounts of founds in the development of new information systems 
to help them gather,  process and disseminate data from the population. 
Keywords: integration, information systems, standards, data integration, application integra-
tion. 
 
asic concepts regarding integration 
Th
be con
e beginning of integration in IT can 
sidered the day the integrated circuit 
was developed. In 1959 this circuit integrated 
many discoveries like: transistors, residences 
and capacitances in one silicone chip. In 
1965, Gordon Moore stated his famous law 
[5]: The complexity for minimum component 
costs has increased at a rate of roughly a 
factor of two per year ... Certainly over the 
short term this rate can be expected to con-
tinue, if not to increase. Over the longer 
term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncer-
tain, although there is no reason to believe it 
will not remain nearly constant for at least 
10 years. That means by 1975, the number of 
components per integrated circuit for mini-
mum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a 
large circuit can be built on a single wafer. 
Under the assumption that chip "complexity" 
is proportional to the number of transistors, 
regardless of what they do, the law has 
largely held the test of time to date. How-
ever, one could argue that the per-transistor 
complexity is less in large RAM cache arrays 
than in execution units. From this perspec-
tive, the validity of one formulation of 
Moore's Law may be more questionable. 
This is one of the reasons we need integra-
tion: to find our way out in the light of the 
complexity that continues to grow. The prin-
ciples of managing complexity are simple: 
dividing in smaller and easier to handle parts, 
the development of a standard interface for 
these parts to communicate and also of a hi-
erarchical structure where the information is 
more and more abstract while we climb in 
the hierarchy. The term of middleware ap-
peared in the late 80’s to describe network 
management software. From mid 90’s the 
term is used large scale usually tied to rela-
tional databases to describe message based 
integration. As we showed, integration leads 
to complexity but also to quality, because 
putting together systems implies adding pro-
gressive and emergent components. Organiz-
ing leads to integration, integration to com-
plexity and complexity to diversity. From the 
point of view of diversity, integration is the 
result of a cyclic but progressive evolution, 
helped by the performances and the expertise 
of professionals. Integrated systems refer to 
complex systems which incorporate business 
processes, managerial practices, organiza-
tional interactions, structural transformation 
and knowledge management.  
ata integration 
Data integration is the problem of combining 
data residing at different sources and provid-
ing the user with a unified view of these data. 
In practice, data integration is frequently 
called Enterprise Information Integration. 
The theory of data integration is a subset of 
database theory and formalizes the underly-
ing concepts of the problem in first-order 
logic [2]. Its results tell us whether data inte-
gration is possible and how difficult it is to 
perform. While its definitions may appear 
abstract, they are general enough to accom-
modate all manner of integration systems. 
Standards used in data integration 
The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 
B Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 3 (43)/2007  97
is a pared-down version of SGML, designed 
especially for Web documents. It allows de-
signers to create their own customized tags, 
enabling the definition, transmission, valida-
tion, and interpretation of data between ap-
plications and between organizations. In 
Romania there are more than a few systems 
which rely on the XML standard. For exam-
ple, Labor Inspection developed a system 
which uses XML for the loading of data re-
garding the firms, employees and labor con-
tracts. The structure of this document is de-
scribed on a public webpage (see the link in 
References - [6]). 
A firm can generate its electronic register in 
XML format using the ReviSal application, 
available on the web or by extracting the 
needed information from their own systems 
without loading them manually into the pro-
vided application. If a company runs an Ora-
cle Database application, using PL/SQL can 
generate its register. Let’s say we have the 
following table: 
FIRMS 
ANGAJATORID               NUMBER(7)    
ANGAJATORNUMIRE   VARCHAR2(128)   
LOCALITATEID              NUMBER(7) 
…. 
Using the following procedure the data from 
this table can be converted in XML format. 
Of course, the data usually comes from more 
than one table which can make the procedure 
a little bit more complicated: 
 
DECLARE 
qryCtx DBMS_XMLGEN.ctxHandle; 
result CLOB; 
BEGIN 
qryCtx := dbms_xmlgen.newcontext('SELECT * from 
firms); 
DBMS_XMLGEN.setRowTag(qryCtx, 'UNITATI'); 
LOOP 
result := DBMS_XMLGEN.getXML(qryCtx); 
EXIT WHEN 
DBMS_XMLGEN.getNumRowsProcessed(qryCtx) =0; 
INSERT INTO temp_clob_tab VALUES(result); 
END LOOP;  
END; 
/ 
The XML document, resulted either from 
ReviSal or direct from the database can be 
uploaded on a webpage using a provided 
username or password or can be put on a 
floppy disk and sent to a local Labor Inspec-
tion branch.  
This is an example how a robust and flexible 
standard can be used in the easing of certain 
processes. 
Other institutions are using less flexible stan-
dards for receiving data. For example the 
declarations required by the Ministry of pub-
lic finance are to be sent in simple TXT 
(ASCII format). This text file has a fixed 
format, for example in the 205 Declaration: 
the first 13 characters are used for the ID of 
the payer, the next 2 characters for the nature 
of the incomes, the next 12 characters for the 
total amount restrained by the payer, and so 
on [7]. 
Enterprise Application Integration 
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is 
defined as the uses of software and computer 
systems architectural principles to integrate a 
set of enterprise computer applications. 
In today’s competitive and dynamic business 
environment, applications such as Acquisi-
tions, Production Planning, Accounting, 
Business Intelligence and Integrated Collabo-
ration environments have become imperative 
for organizations that need to maintain their 
competitive advantage. Enterprise Applica-
tion Integration (EAI) is the process of link-
ing these applications and others in order to 
realize financial and operational competitive 
advantages. 
EAI intends to transcend the simple goal of 
linking applications, and attempts to enable 
new and innovative ways of leveraging or-
ganizational knowledge to create further 
competitive advantages for the enterprise. 
When different systems can’t share their data 
effectively, they create information bottle-
necks that require human intervention in the 
form of decision making or data entry. With 
a properly deployed EAI architecture, or-
ganizations are able to focus most of their ef-
forts on their value creating core competen-
cies instead of focusing on workflow man-
agement. 
Enterprise Resource Planning 
Enterprise Resource Planning systems 
(ERPs) integrate (or attempt to integrate) all 
data and processes of an organization into a Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 3 (43)/2007  98 
unified system. A typical ERP system will 
use multiple components of computer soft-
ware and hardware to achieve the integration. 
A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the 
use of a unified database to store data for the 
various system modules. 
The term ERP originally implied systems de-
signed to plan the use of enterprise-wide re-
sources. Although the acronym ERP origi-
nated in the manufacturing environment, to-
day's use of the term ERP systems has much 
broader scope. ERP systems typically at-
tempt to cover all basic functions of an or-
ganization, regardless of the organization's 
business or charter. Business, non-profit or-
ganizations, nongovernmental organizations, 
governments, and other large entities utilize 
ERP systems. The introduction of an ERP 
system to replace two or more independent 
applications eliminates the need for external 
interfaces previously required between sys-
tems, and provides additional benefits that 
range from standardization and lower main-
tenance (one system instead of two or more) 
to easier and/or greater reporting capabilities 
(as all data is typically kept in one database). 
Examples of modules in an ERP which for-
merly would have been stand-alone applica-
tions include: Accounting, Acquisitions, 
Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Financials, 
Customer Relationship Management (CRM), 
Human Resources, and Warehouse Manage-
ment. 
 
Fig.1  Integration using ERP software 
 
Service oriented application integration 
Service oriented application integration al-
lows enterprises to share common methods. 
This sharing is accomplished either by defin-
ing some methods to be accessed by all ap-
plications and thus being integrated, either by 
offering an infrastructure for such methods, 
for instance Web services. The methods can 
be accessed by storing them on a central 
server (distributed objects) or by a Web ser-
vices standard, for instance .NET [4]. 
The Web service used to access trade infor-
mation, offered to the agreed Intermediaries 
(Investment Firms) by the Bucharest Stock 
Exchange(BSE), is an example of using web 
services by Romanian institutions. The web 
service is accessible through messages sent 
by the means of standard Web protocols. The 
protocols being used are SOAP 
(http://www.w3.org/TR/soap/), for the format 
of the requesting and answering messages, 
and WSDL (http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl) for 
describing the interfaces. 
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) de-
fines the XML based message format used by 
the Web service-enabled applications to 
communicate and interoperate with each 
other over the Web.  
Web Service Description Language (WSDL) 
is a collection of metadata about XML based 
services used for describing the businesses 
scope and how to access their services elec-
tronically. Based on SOAP, WSDL specifies 
the procedures to discover functional and Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 3 (43)/2007  99
technical information about Web services 
over the Internet. 
For the system provided by Bucharest Stock 
Market, the WSDL file can be obtained at the 
address: 
http://www.rasd.ro/bsews/intraday.asmx?wsd
l. The web service is described at 
http://www.rasd.ro/bsews/intraday.asmx. The 
access is restricted at IP level. 
Based on this service, any investment firm 
can build its own system for requesting 
quotes on five different levels. 
 
 
Fig. 2  Integrated BSE trading system 
 
Portal oriented application integration 
Portal oriented application integration allows 
one to view a multitude of systems, both in-
ternal enterprise systems and external enter-
prise systems, through a single user interface 
or application. The use of portals to integrate 
enterprises has many advantages. The pri-
mary one is that there is no need to integrate 
back-end systems directly between or within 
enterprises, which eliminates the associated 
cost or risk. With portals, the user simply 
connects to each back-end system through a 
point of integration (user interface, database, 
application server etc.) which externalizes 
the information into a common user interface 
(Web browser). 
There cannot be integrated information sys-
tems and implicitly, integrated systems for 
the citizens if the interoperability is reduced 
to a department’s own system or, in best-case 
scenario, one of an institution. 
The Public Administration Information Sys-
tems Professionals Association (PAISPA) 
has launched a project in 2004 that had the 
purpose of creating the pre-requisites of us-
ing unique information portals by standardiz-
ing the databases that are already in place in 
the Romanian institutions [8]. 
 
Conclusions 
System integration is an activity that you no 
longer read about only in books. It’s some-
thing that takes place in Romania. Even 
though it’s not as large scale as it might have 
been desired, companies use it to gain a 
competitive advantage in an evolving market.  
References 
[1]  Ion LUNGU, Manole VELICANU, Ion RO-
SCA, Adela BARA, Vlad DIACONITA, Iuliana 
BOTHA - „Technologies for system integration 
in public institutions”, CNCSIS Contract, 2006. 
[2]  Maurizio LENZERINI - "Data Integration: A 
Theoretical Perspective". PODS, pag. 243-246, 
2006. 
[3]  Lawrence A. CUNNINGHAM - "Language, 
Deals and Standards: The Future of XML Con-
tracts", Washington University Law Review, 
2005. 
[4]  David S.Linthicum – „Next Generation Ap-
plication Integration: From Simple Information 
to Web Services”, Addison Wesley Publisher, 
2003. 
[5]  http://www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/inde
x.htm 
[6]  http://www.inspectiamuncii.ro/fisiere/format%20f
isier%20xml.pdf 
[7]  http://www.mfinante.ro/link.jsp?body=/contribua
bili/sistemul_fiscal/programe11.htm 
[8]  http://www.aniap.ro/index.php?option=content&t
ask=view&id=54&Itemid=73 
 

CUNNINGHAM - &quot;Language, Deals and Standards: The Future of XML Contracts&quot;,

Data Integration: A Theoretical Perspective&quot;.

Iuliana BOTHA - „Technologies for system integration in public institutions”, CNCSIS Contract,

Next Generation Application Integration: From Simple Information to Web Services”,

The Level of Information Systems Integration in Romania

http://revistaie.ase.ro/content/43/13-diaconita.pdf

The Level of Information Systems Integration in Romania

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