How do you estimate a EAI project using Function point?

Question

How do you estimate a EAI project using Function point?

Answer 1

Well given that FP counting is based on storage and end user interface, not sure if its even meaningful for EAI (from what little I remember).

I would say you can't, at least not in a useful way. FP counting is generally viewed as a dubious practice of varying accuracy, doing it to an integration project would just add more fuzzyness.

Answer 2

FP analysis is inappropriate for integration projects of any sort as it presupposes that you can specify the application up-front. Most of the work in any integration project of non-trivial complexity is reverse-engineering the nuances of the environment. Typically the environment will not be exhaustively documented in the sort of cases you would expect to use an EAI system in.

By the time you have actually done this level of reverse engineering to the point of having a complete specification you have done most of the work in the project - the actual development is fairly short and sweet by comparison. Therefore the function point analysis is only providing an estimate for a small part of the system.

As an aside, much of the work I do is data warehouse systems in Commercial insurance companies, where extensive prototyping and reconciliation exercises to produce detailed specification documents are actually quite appropriate to the environment. Typically this takes longer than actually developing the production system as most of the data issues are resolved in the prototyping work. EAI systems have a similar class of implementation issues.