Why Develop a Modern Integration Platform?

This post is the first in a series of six in which our team of integration experts will teach you how to build your modern integration platform with Azure Integration Services.

We’ll look at all the issues and everything you’ll need to consider to achieve this goal:

• What are your reasons for developing an integration platform?
• How do you do it? With which services?
• Where do you start?
• What about platform life cycle management?
• What governance should then be put in place to operate this platform?
• And more.

In this first post, our Integration Practice Manager answers the following questions: what are integration and iPaaS? Why would you want to build a modern integration platform?

What is integration?

Let’s start with a quick definition of Integration, since it’s important that we all mean the same thing when we use the word “Integration.”

Integration is the set of services and/or practices that link and connect the various applications of an Information System (IS) to one another. It enables the connection of specific functions and/or the exchange of data to ensure the smooth running of the company.

The integration platform can go by many names: integration platform, mediation platform, or middleware.

Integration platforms are often created as part of existing information system urbanization projects, with the aim of clarifying, simplifying, and standardizing the approach to interapplication data exchanges. We’ll then be moving from a “spaghetti” or “spider web” architecture to an “urbanized” and “controlled” architecture of exchanges.

And what about iPaaS?

According to Gartner, an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a suite of Cloud services enabling the development, execution, and governance of integration flows connecting on-premise or Cloud-based data, applications, services, or processes within an enterprise or between multiple enterprises.

In simple terms, it’s a suite of Cloud services for creating an integration platform that draws on the strengths of the Cloud while retaining the benefits of legacy platforms. The aim is to get the best of both worlds.

Does integration apply to every company?

Large companies are usually the most likely to have an integration platform—or to want to develop one. There are many reasons for this, but the most notable are the size of their IS, which involves a great deal of data exchange, their greater maturity in dealing with this type of issue, and the resources at their disposal. In fact, an integration platform generally comes with a high price tag, which can be an obstacle for smaller companies.

On the other hand, with the advent of the Cloud and iPaaS-type technologies, the upfront costs and average implementation times are now much lower. That’s why Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are becoming interested in setting up an iPaaS platform.

Why Build an Integration Platform?

So, why do companies start building a modern integration platform?

Although every context is different, there are 3 main categories of reasons for setting up an integration platform.

Fairly extensive growth of the company’s information system

As companies continue to pursue performance and growth, they continue to expand their information systems:

• development of custom solutions;
• addition of major market solutions such as ERP, CRM, and e-commerce;
• internal migration projects;
• phases of platform centralization or decentralization;

Large and very large enterprises also face another interesting challenge: the acquisition of entities or other companies. This type of operation often involves taking two separate information systems and merging them into a single one. Streamlining systems and data flows is a major and complex challenge, often requiring companies to rethink their integration processes.

All these projects tend to complicate the task of managing, implementing, and supporting exchanges between old and new systems.

è In such cases, implementing a modern integration platform will standardize, homogenize, and simplify interapplication data exchanges, thanks to centralized, well-thought-out, and—above all—context-sensitive integration processes.

Move-to-Cloud projects

Transformation of the IT landscape, digital transformation projects, APIsation projects, the advent of new technologies, and more: all these trends continue to drive companies to transform their IT and turn to cloud technologies.

This is no trivial shift, generally requiring the implementation of large-scale transformation or Move-to-Cloud projects. These Move-to-Cloud projects need to provide answers to the following challenges: new technologies, upskilling and training, governance, resistance to change, profound organizational transformation, etc.

è Integration platforms are no exception and must evolve accordingly: modernization of technologies and ways of doing things, new infrastructures, new workflows, obsolescence and migration, streamlining, connectivity, security, and so on.

Existing migration projects

At Cellenza, a Microsoft pure-player, most of our Integration experts have worked for many years on BizTalk and SSIS. These solutions were among the best in the integration world, and many of today’s integration platforms are based on these technologies.

But, like all good things, these technologies are nearing the end of their life cycle. The latest version of BizTalk, for example, was released in 2020 and will be supported until April 11, 2028, with extended support continuing until September 4, 2030. After that, platforms running on this version of BizTalk will no longer receive maintenance from the publisher.

Microsoft is therefore urging its customers to get ahead of the game and start migrating to integration platforms based on Azure Integration Services (AIS) now.

Why now? There are several answers to this question:

• Firstly, as the end-of-support date approaches, companies will need to launch migration projects. In our experience, these projects are no small affair, requiring careful thought, prioritization, planning, and follow-up to ensure a controlled, painless transition.
• Secondly, consider the dwindling resources available on the market. Indeed, BizTalk experts are now keen to learn more about AIS services, to keep abreast of the latest developments and work on high value-added projects. Young graduates, on the other hand, are trained directly in the latest technologies, so will never have BizTalk skills.
• Finally, companies’ knowledge of their integration platform, and what happens on it, is at its peak or already in decline. Integration projects are often lengthy, but successive turnover of resources and the gradual departure of experts will contribute to the loss of knowledge. Add to this a lack of documentation and the fact that resources who understand what’s been done before are beginning to disappear… It’s easy to see why it’s so critical to migrate while that knowledge still exists.

Integration Platforms: Key Takeaways

To conclude this first post, let’s keep in mind that:

• Integration issues are not new: the business remains the same, but practices are evolving just as IT in general is evolving.
• Integration projects are as strategic as ever, if not more so since the advent of the Cloud. Increasing the number of services means more integration workflows to ensure that data circulates sufficiently and correctly.
• Reduced initial investment and improved time to market mean that small and medium-sized enterprises can introduce integration platforms where cost was previously a barrier.
• With the proliferation of applications, services, and tools within information systems, the modern integration platform plays a major role in streamlining information systems, exchanges, and costs.
• Despite extended support dates, the time to start thinking about migrating your integration platform is now. Complexity, dwindling resources, and loss of knowledge all need to be taken into account and anticipated if the move is to be a success.

Read the other posts of this serie:

• Why Use Azure Integration Services?

• How Can You Use AIS to Adapt Your Integration Platform to Azure Services?

• How to Supervise Your Integration Platform: Challenges and Best Practices

Do you need help with your integration project? Discover our Modern Integration services and contact us!