The IT architecture had grown over 15 years and the EDI communication was spread across several EDI server. This involved high efforts which were to be reduced with the introduction of an EAI standard software:- Connection of about 100 partners and 400 customers, exchange of highly heterogeneous message formats, i.e. record structures, EDIFACT, customer specific formats, XML and binary files- Connection to FTP, E-Mail, mailboxes (IBM, Eurolog, Telecom) and MQ-Series- Reduction of maintenance and evaluation efforts, easy tracing of data flows, increase in performance, introduction of central error handling