The increasing complexity of application integration calls for new approaches
Organizations are deploying a wider range of applications in different deployment models, and often finding that seamless integration is the key for realization of the true business value of these investments. The traditional approaches to application integration have failed to deliver expected results in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Without doubt, cloud computing is no longer a buzzword and is here to stay. The rapid rise of cloud computing is adding to the existing heterogeneity of enterprise application portfolios and creating issues that are beyond the capabilities of traditional application integration approaches. It is time IT leaders focused on improving integration capabilities, especially for cloud services.
The complexity of application integration will continue to increase
SaaS-based enterprise applications are fast becoming a component of the enterprise software stack. It is important that these applications interact with other on-premise and cloud-based applications to deliver their true value to the IT and business sides of the enterprise. At times, integration is required between disparate applications deployed across multiple locations. In such instances, security and governance are also key concerns.
Many organizations are realizing that cloud computing can lead to more information silos and greater integration complexity. Cloud service providers often claim that they provide web services APIs to ease the integration between SaaS and on-premise applications; however, on-premise applications may have been developed under a different set of standards and consequently not interact with SaaS applications. Complexity of application integration can further increase in cases in which the infrastructure applications are run on is delivered as a service (infrastructure-as-a-service). There are several other complex application integration scenarios, including multiple-enterprise process automation, in which the traditional approaches did not deliver expected results.
Traditional approaches are a poor fit for imminent application integration requirements
Traditional approaches to application integration can be classified into two categories: one that involves integration platforms such as enterprise service buses (ESBs) and extract, transform, and load (ETL) tools; and another that involves custom code development. The first approach is an expensive proposition, considering the costs involved in the procurement, implementation, and maintenance of integration platforms. The second approach provides a solution to a specific problem and, owing to the constant necessity of maintaining highly skilled technical staff (for maintenance and upgrading of initial code), invariably leads to greater expenditure in the long run. In the past, for many enterprises application integration remained the “achilles’ heel” for IT. Traditional approaches were unfit for meeting the ever-evolving requirements of application integration in a timely and cost-effective manner, and did not deliver the expected results.
One can argue that most of the issues related to application integration are rooted in the fundamental mistake of defining application integration as a point function. Clearly, applications run on distributed infrastructure across different locations and use distributed data sources, and therefore a point-to-point perspective leads to point solutions that are not capable of supporting a different set of applications.
Given the ever-evolving complexity of application integration, organizations have been forced to look out for suitable alternatives to traditional approaches to application integration. Alternatives that cater to a wider range of application integration scenarios and are cost effective to implement in a suitable time period are likely to witness surges in adoption, and cloud-based integration platforms could fit the bill.
The value proposition of cloud-based integration platforms is attractive
A new class of cloud-based integration offerings, often called integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS), is fast emerging as a suitable option for a wide range of application integration scenarios: cloud to cloud, cloud to on-premise, and on-premise to on-premise. These platforms extend the functionality provided by earlier integration-as-a-service offerings, and provide design and runtime governance as well as enabling efficient execution and management of integration flows between independent applications. iPaaS suites build on the SOA heritage and strengthen the tie between integration and governance. Although these offerings are not yet mature, there are clear indications that iPaaS suites will support the needs of on-premise-to-on-premise application integration and can be a suitable alternative to traditional integration approaches. iPaaS suites ensure that enterprise users do not need to purchase and deploy any hardware and application infrastructure, and provide typical benefits of cloud services such as reduction in upfront capex, easier upgrades, and flexible pricing.
iPaaS suites are a good option for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that do not have well-established integration capabilities and are looking for consolidated suites that cater for a wide range of application integration requirements. In the case of large enterprises, iPaaS offerings are best suited for integration scenarios that would be otherwise too expensive to implement in the traditional manner. In the near-term, large enterprises will continue to rely on established integration capabilities for most of their application integration needs. Enterprises that have used integration-as-a-service offerings in the past are expected to gradually move to a superset of functionalities offered by iPaaS suites.
