A technology shift is happening, and IT leaders face challenges unlike any they’ve had before. One of the more common challenges enterprises face is cloud integration which several vendors are meeting the need for reliable cloud integration solutions by offering an integration service known as iPaaS.
What is iPaaS?
iPaaS, short for integration platform as a service, is a set of cloud services/tools used to connect software applications that are deployed in different environments. This allows for faster integration and data sharing and removes barriers that IT teams normally face when new applications are added and allow for integration between cloud applications and even on-premises applications when combined with an API management solution.
An enterprise-grade iPaaS provides a more robust suite of tools and services in addition to that core set of cloud capabilities, such as B2B integration for business data exchange, self-service integrations across virtualized networks, mesh governance for microservices, and more.
iPaaS advantages and capabilities
An important foundation in any company is certainly application integration. Modern integration techniques through APIs and digital transformation go hand in hand to help a company open and deliver with consistency data to support innovation.
Base capabilities of iPaaS are communication connectors, application connectors, formats support (XML, etc.) and standards support (EDI, etc.). As well as mapping and transformation, routing and orchestration, integration flow development and lifecycle management, operational monitoring and management. This list is familiar to those who have tracked the integration space. Note that the difference is in how these capabilities are offered.
iPaaS necessities
iPaaS is certainly a necessity in circumstances in which integration capabilities are nonexistent. Why? Because they are not prepared to support the pace and demands of your initiative. This allows a company to quickly address the integration of fast-moving integration projects.
With iPaaS, often through focused user experience and availability such as SaaS, it targets the new persona’s emerging in integration including the ad-hoc integrator and citizen integrator. Via this, it’s important to note that “Gartner views iPaaS as core HIP enabling technology.” At the recent IT symposium in Barcelona, Gartner highlighted hybrid integration platform in the session entitled “Digital Business Transformation Canvas” and noted here and elsewhere iPaaS as well as AMPLIFY API Management as cornerstone technologies to a HIP.
It’s important to know the facts and learn more about hybrid integration platforms in making choices in integration technologies. Read our hybrid integration decision guide to learn more.
Learn about all things HIP in the resource center here.
Learn more about hybrid and multi-cloud integration here.