Typical enterprises use dozens, hundreds, and sometimes- even thousands of applications, components, services, and databases. Many of them are custom built in-house or by third parties, some are bought, others are based on Open Source projects, and the origin of a few - usually the most critical ones - is completely unknown. If you're on the hook to integrate enterprise-class systems together, the tips and techniques in this book will help. The stunning popularity of the Ruby on Rails framework has opened the doors for the Ruby programming language in the enterprise, and this title is a logical follow-on to expand Ruby into a natural application niche - Enterprise Integration. This book is first to show how to use Ruby effectively and integrate existing resources, i.e. XML files, databases, and web services.