Integration as a Service: Why do you need iPaaS?

To succeed in digital transformation goals, businesses need to integrate more systems, people and things than ever before. Businesses require more touch points and greater intelligence as they generate more integration requests because they use more applications (both in the cloud and on-premises) to interact with the outside world, connect more applications and data sources, and enable more people with information they need. So why do you need iPaaS and how does it fit into this equation?

“The strategic iPaas/HiP market is growing because more EA professionals see strategic iPaas/HiP as a key element of their digital transformation agility,” according to The Forrester Wave™: Strategic iPaaS And Hybrid Integration Platforms, Q1 2019.¹

Make those connections and integrations at unprecedented speed

iPaaS is designed to handle the challenges of cloud-based (SaaS) applications, making it possible to connect to any database and any application—whether they function in a cloud environment, on-premises or in a combination of both environments. This allows businesses to improve operations, drive more business through self-service channels, reduce costs, and engage and empower both customers and employees.

iPaaS can be used in several integration scenarios. These include real-time data exchange between applications (cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-ground or even ground-to-ground); one-time data migrations; ongoing data replication to support analytics and archiving processes and even Internet of Things (IoT).

Let’s explore some unique characteristics of an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) and why it’s suited for helping businesses accomplish this digital transformation. Understanding what an iPaaS is, how it works, and how it delivers value for your data processing functions is key to ensuring your business workflows operate smoothly and to enable your company to continue meeting customer expectations.

1. Make integration easier

Organizational data is no longer centrally stored and managed in corporate data centers. Instead, it’s scattered everywhere which increases integration work and complexity. A few years ago, integration was a nightmare and required highly skilled staff in IT to configure point-to-point integration with earlier technologies like EAI and ESB.

An iPaaS can simplify an organization’s overall system where it is scalable and can meet the increased data volume from mobile and other environments. It supports real-time integration with the goal of minimum disruption, providing customers with an enhanced overall experience.

iPaaS may be cheaper than ESB, offer more scalability and be advantageous for B2B integration outside an organization’s own systems.

READ MORE: Incorporating hybrid capabilities into iPaaS.

2. Enable API initiatives

APIs and integration are closely correlated. API inconsistency is a key challenge when it comes to making API-based applications work together. Let’s say every application has an API, you still need integration. APIs facilitate integration and integration platforms are key to fast API delivery.

With an iPaaS strategy, businesses can enable API initiatives with the consistency of data and communication assuring shortened time to market and reduced sales cycles.

3. Reduce development time and overhead

iPaaS is about speed and accelerating integration projects so that they could keep pace with fast-changing SaaS applications and fast-moving business needs. An iPaaS solution provides prebuilt connectors, business rules, catalogs and transformations that facilitate the development of integration flows and application programming interface (API) management.

Why do you need iPaaS?

An iPaaS solution can drastically reduce the time and effort needed to make changes, thereby improving organizational agility.

READ MORE: Making the case for iPaaS webinar.

¹ The Forrester Wave™: Strategic iPaaS And Hybrid Integration Platforms, Q1 2019, Forrester Research, Inc., January 03, 2019