What is enterprise integration? 

In today’s business world, the ability to innovate and adapt to change is more critical than ever. Increasingly, this means sharing, and harnessing, massive volumes of data—so companies can better understand their customers, keep on top of global trends, and drive new streams of revenue.

This sounds simple enough—but for many enterprises, it can be a struggle. Too often, the IT landscape is cluttered—with an ever-growing mix of applications, databases, and devices strewn across multiple clouds and data warehouses. Some companies have inherited redundancies through mergers and acquisitions. In other cases, the varying needs of different business units means digital assets have developed in different ways. The end result, though, is much the same: a tangle of disparate applications, operating systems, and data formats that makes sharing information far more of a chore—and far more sluggish—than it should be.

Enterprise integration is an approach designed to overcome this chaos—by seamlessly connecting the entire IT landscape. It allows enterprises to bring together all applications, devices, clouds, processes, and data—to build stronger connections between systems, teams, customers, and partners, and truly take advantage of all big data has to offer.

Enterprise integration consists of five key patterns, or components: application integration, API management, data integration, B2B integration, and event integration. All offer different avenues for connectivity, though they tend to work best in tandem via the centralized framework of an enterprise integration platform. Today’s platforms are typically cloud-based, and offer a stable, secure way to utilize all integration patterns across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.  

Application integration

Application integration—which enables individually-designed applications to share information—is at the core of any enterprise integration platform. Businesses today use hundreds, if not thousands, of applications, and many of them are mission critical: Few companies could make it through a day without a functioning enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which contains a suite of tools to manage back-office functions—from HR to accounting to business processes and more. For most marketing and sales teams, a customer relationship management (CRM) platform—which stores, manages, and tracks customer data, is as central to doing business as the telephone was a generation prior.

Too often, this application landscape is highly fragmented: some pieces of software live on legacy servers in far-flung data centers. Others are strewn across multiple clouds or accessed on a subscription basis as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Application integration is the glue that binds these disparate pieces of software together—allowing them to share information and drive a more seamless digital experience.

API management 

Application programming interfaces—or APIs—are a standard set of protocols that enable different systems to communicate and exchange information. They function like digital messengers connecting applications, data, and devices. APIs have grown in importance due to their ability to simplify app development, accelerate cloud migration, and enable business and IT teams to collaborate more effectively. In a 2022 survey by Software AG’s research partners Vanson Bourne, 98% of IT decision makers reported that APIs were “extremely” or “very” important to their enterprise’s operations.

One big draw of APIs is their ability to combine data and functionality to create new services and business strategies. They’re particularly well suited for developers looking to leverage third party systems and products, or build eCommerce or other omni-channel solutions that drive new streams of revenue. Yet APIs also heighten system vulnerabilities—especially when they’re misconfigured or allowed to proliferate uncontrollably. API management tools can dramatically reduce the risk of hacks and data breaches by centralizing API monitoring, standardizing security rules, and boosting visibility of the full API lifecycle. They also help developers create, test, release, and monitor new APIs without causing service disruptions, and without creating crosscurrents with other business units. Many offer tools that help users build their own API marketplace and develop comprehensive strategies for API monetization.

Data integration

Data integration entails combining data from a variety of formats and sources and uniting it into a single dataset to support business intelligence and analytics. It has evolved rapidly as enterprises have embraced digitalization—and the sources and volume of data generated by businesses, consumers, and machines have skyrocketed. Today, a growing number of organizations utilize DataOps, a set of practices and technologies designed to make sense of data from an increasingly broad range of internal and external sources. The best DataOps services utilize continuous data pipelines that overcome the challenge of enabling data from one system to move to and become useful in another. This works by pulling raw data from its source, applying rules for transformation and processing, and pushing it to applications, dashboards, or machine learning/AI systems.

Not all enterprise integration platforms include DataOps capabilities. Yet those that do are far better equipped to capture the end-to-end value of data as it moves between on-premises and SaaS applications, data streams, legacy data stores, and cloud-based data platforms. Not only can data pipelines be created on the fly to unstick IT bottlenecks; they can also facilitate the migration of data to the cloud, and enable real-time or near real-time analytics for faster, more informed decision-making. Their range of applications varies widely—from linking scientific data to speed up drug discovery, to powering real time COVID-19 portals, to combining data from a diverse set of IOT sensors for industrial predictive maintenance.

B2B Integration

For many enterprises, partner ecosystems are a lifeblood: the ability to easily and reliably connect with customers, vendors, distributors, and suppliers is as vital to business success as making sure all internal systems are in-sync. Modern B2B integration helps businesses establish rock-solid connections with a wide variety of partner systems, enabling them to onboard partners quickly, monitor transactions with end-to-end visibility, and maintain a 360-degree view of their partner network.

B2B integrations come in several varieties. Most large enterprises utilize complex Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems that automate the sending and receiving purchase orders, shipping notices, invoices, and other critical business documents. Increasingly, they’re complementing these with API-driven integrations to tap into new streams of revenue through shared services or e-commerce implementation. Some smaller companies that lack EDI capabilities are utilizing APIs for the routine transaction of documents as well. Both types of businesses can reap substantial benefits through the use of an enterprise integration platform. Not only does this gives users centralized control over all B2B integration tools; it also helps drive B2B connections across partners’ IT landscapes—from legacy systems, to custom applications, to SaaS apps and IoT devices.

Events 

Event-driven architecture is a design pattern that uses events within a system—such as a click on a webpage, a sensor reading, or database entry—to communicate between decoupled services. It is common in modern software that is built using microservices: an approach where an application is structured as a collection of small, loosely coupled, and independently deployable services. Events communicate changes as they’re happening—enabling business to meet real-time demands and build better experiences for customers, employees, and partners. 

Event-driven services tend to work best as part of a unified platform that includes application integration, APIs and B2B. This helps ensure event triggers will be communicated across the entire IT landscape. Many enterprise integration platforms include event-specific capabilities, including pre-built connectors for popular event streaming technologies, and tools to help developers built and assemble event-driven workflows. 

Enterprise integration can help companies navigate several common IT challenges, all of which involve the linking of different IT systems to better meet the needs of business. Having an enterprise integration strategy that’s well aligned with the business strategy ensures optimal allocation of scarce resources, budget, and focus on the appropriate business goals. Popular use cases include automation, IT modernization, cloud migration and the management of multi-cloud environments, and efforts to improve customer service, monetize data, and drive sustainability.  

Business efficiency 

Improving efficiency is an imperative of nearly every business leader, especially in uncertain economic climates. Automating processes can help improve efficiency, and drive productivity, across every department—from sales and marketing, to IT, HR, and finance. Through automated workflows, employees can cut back on tedious, repetitive tasks—like filling out endless forms or routinely entering the same data—while achieving greater consistency and reducing the risk of errors. Business process automation moreover, can lead to faster, more reliable performance in areas as diverse as billing, quality control and testing, and supply chain management. Advances in AI and real-time data have made these disciplines more effective than ever: software designed for business process automation, for example, can use AI to learn, adapt, and make decisions that drive even higher levels of efficiency.  

Automation, nonetheless, cannot work in a vacuum: a key first step to automating workflows and processes involves bringing together information that’s often stashed away in disparate systems—in data warehouses, across multiple clouds, and in applications used across the business. Many rely heavily on ERPs (enterprise resource planning systems) designed to implement processes for finance, HR, manufacturing, supply chain, services and more in a single system. Relying on an ERP as a holistic solution has its own challenges. As businesses move to differentiate and innovate, they need to customize their ERPs. Growing complexity in the ERP causes risk, and the system becomes impossibly difficult to change and upgrade. This vicious circle has driven a change in the role of ERPs, from highly customized behemoth to a back-to-basics system of record.  

By connecting and harmonizing information from a variety of sources into a single platform, enterprise integration provides a single source of truth that enables automation to boost worker and customer satisfaction, while providing the agility to adapt to new strategies and market changes.

IT modernization

Any company that’s more than a few years old likely faces challenges from legacy IT—and modernizing it is never a straightforward task. Since hardware and software can become outdated quickly, IT modernization a complex and continuous process. Often, it invokes internal resistance: legacy systems tend to contain crucial business information. Modernizing them in one fell swoop—an approach often known as “rip and replace”—risks grinding business operations to a halt, with potential long-term impacts on bottom-line and reputation.  

A growing modernization risk involves legacy B2B integration. In order to communicate securely via digital channels with partners and suppliers, a set of highly structured standards and protocols were created. However, the B2B gateways that implement these interactions are reaching end-of-life, and skilled workers to support them are becoming more scarce, resulting in high support costs for connecting new trading partners and debugging issues.  Companies are looking to unify the processing behind both APIs and B2B, but the prognosis is that B2B and APIs will co-exist for many years to come.

Many enterprises ultimately choose to modernize their backend systems without replacing them entirely. With the right set of tools, and the proper planning, businesses can leverage application integration, APIs, and microservices to extend the life of existing technologies and connect and share their essential data with more modern cloud-based systems. An enterprise integration platform provides the connectivity that enables this—and allows companies to take on innovative projects without being forced to tear-down long trusted infrastructure or jeopardize business continuity.

Hybrid and multi-cloud strategy 

Cloud migration, these days, is nearly synonymous with “digital transformation”: 60% of the world’s corporate data is now cloud-based, up from just 30% in 2015. Yet just as “rip and replace” is not a one size-fits all approach to legacy modernization, a simple “lift-and-shift” of mainframe apps into the cloud will not automatically yield the benefits—like cost efficiency and scalability—that cloud infrastructure is designed for. Many enterprises maintain vital systems of record in ERP systems hosted on premises; while migrating these might reduce some costs, it also risks increasing latency between systems—and resulting in an architecture that’s more cumbersome than before.  

Cloud migration is further complicated by the fact that many enterprises today utilize not one cloud but many. Multi-cloud strategies enable businesses avoid lock-in with specific vendors, choose data center locations that comply with regional data sovereignty and privacy regulations, hedge against security and downtime vulnerabilities, and optimize costs by choosing the most cost-effective services for specific tasks. Yet they also come with added challenges. Enterprises must carefully synchronize applications and workloads to function across cloud providers, each with their unique methods of deployment, while juggling multiple security protocols to keep their systems safe. Multiple clouds mean that data is often siloed in different pipelines, and management loses out on opportunities to leverage it for insights. And finally, data sovereignty and cost governance concerns are hindering cloud adoption. 

Enterprise integration is a key enabler for a successful cloud strategy. Enterprise integration gives businesses the tools to map out and execute the most effective paths to the cloud, whether they involve private cloud deployment of existing software, the adoption of SaaS applications, the building of new cloud-native solutions—or, as is often the case, a a mixture of strategies, moving at different paces.  Companies are becoming more cautious about cloud risk and security, driving the popularity of hybrid architecture.  

Enterprise integration also unlocks the potential of a multi-cloud strategy, by facilitating interoperability between different cloud platforms, synchronizing data, enabling tighter security, and providing centralized monitoring capabilities that make it possible to track the performance and health of applications, services, and transactions—no matter where they’re hosted.  

Customer experience 

Customer experience isn’t everything, but it’s close: According to Forbes, 96% of customers say customer service is important in their choice of brand loyalty—and 83% of companies that prioritize customer satisfaction also experience growing revenue.

Keeping customers happy today is largely a story of connectivity. Businesses that achieve centralized control of their operations, by bringing together systems, data, processes, and people, are far better equipped to provide a painless digital experience, while offering new products and services that make their brand stand out. They’re also better prepared to guard against threats that put customer data at risk—and could lead to a grave reputational hit in the case of a large-scale data exposure.

An enterprise integration platform is an ideal way to achieve this single-pane-of glass view—and leverage IT across multiple regions, clouds, and user-environments to deliver services that keep customers returning. 

Data monetization 

As more of our personal and work lives take place online, companies today are generating unprecedented volumes of data. Until recently, data as a product was primarily the domain of the world’s tech giants, who had the resources to invest in the infrastructure and tools needed to transform it into a workable value proposition. Today, however, the rise of cloud computing, the spread of machine learning models, and the development of DataOps processes, mean that far more enterprises are positioned to monetize their data—by using it to streamline their own operations, or storing it with an eye toward uses by potential partners. 
 
A first step toward treating data as a product is getting ahold of it: too often, it’s scattered across multiple mainframe servers or giant cloud warehouses that are difficult to access and manipulate. The right enterprise integration platform, equipped with the right DataOps tools and principles, can tease order out of the mess of modern data and transform it into business value.

Sustainability 

Sustainability is no longer just a buzzword. Today, the fight to curb emissions, and prioritize environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) principles, is critical to a company’s reputation and at the heart of nearly every business decision. Enterprises that take deliberate measures to define sustainability strategy, track metrics, and orchestrate results for their sustainability goals will have distinct market advantages.

A first step to doing all of this is having access to the right data—whether it relates to supply chains, industrial processes, or the carbon footprint of a company’s own data centers. An enterprise integration platform offers the application integration, APIs, and data pipeline capabilities to achieve a cohesive view of data from the entirety of its IT systems. This streamlines the tracking and reporting of ESG compliance, and helps business leaders begin to plan, and operationalize, their sustainability initiatives.

As connectivity, and leveraging data, becomes increasingly vital, businesses across various industries—from manufacturing, to open banking, to logistics—are adopting more agile integration strategies. The following are some enterprise integration examples illustrating how different sectors implement these solutions:

• Bonfiglioli: A leader in design, production and distribution of gearboxes and drive systems, this Italian manufacturer had an ambitious growth strategy that relied on improving business automation and connecting stable core functions with new cloud-based solutions seamlessly. They integrated on-prem and multi-cloud infrastructure for frictionless access to data and accelerated development of partner integrations with secure API and B2B integration. The new enterprise integration platform is delivering scalability, productivity, and improved customer experience.
• Medical Industrie: This family-owned business needed to process 20,000 annual orders more efficiently in order to grow, but their IT department was miniscule. With new workflow automation provided by fast, secure, and easy-to-use hybrid enterprise integration, they were able to reduce data entry time by 95%.
  
• Komatsu: This international supplier of industrial mining and construction equipment had 100 years of heritage and data locked into its systems. They needed the right middleware to create a flexible platform that would support a complicated cloud migration. With a robust enterprise integration and API platform, they were able to quickly launch new products and services and are on target to move 70% of on-prem interfaces to the cloud.
• EFG Hermes: With a strong portfolio of banking and financial services, this universal bank undertook an ambitious push into the non-bank financial product market. Their legacy integration needed to be modernized, and they needed new ways of connecting with customers. They were able to seamlessly transition to a hybrid API-enabled enterprise integration platform and cut product time to market by nearly 60%, achieving a record number of new users.
• Humana: To support the integrated care model, this healthcare company needed a hyperconnected ecosystem—a new approach to enterprise data integration. Applying DataOps principles and tools, they automated the provisioning of data from multiple sources to deliver it into a hybrid cloud environment. With access to comprehensive insights, providers can now better anticipate needs and give members more control over their outcomes.

An integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) is a cloud-based platform that contains automated tools for creating and managing enterprise integration services. An iPaaS makes it easy to share data between different applications deployed in different environments—including on-premises, in public and private clouds, and SaaS. An iPaaS typically comes with a stockpile of pre-built connectors to facilitate information sharing with a range of widely used applications. Most offer intuitive dashboards; many are moving toward low code/no code drag-and-drop capabilities accessible to so-called “citizen integrators” who lack a detailed programming background.

Most iPaaS today belong to one of two categories. Both come with pros and cons, though neither constitutes a full-scale enterprise integration platform.

• The classic, “heavyweight” iPaaS offers the most robust set of tools for complex projects. It was designed with the traditional integration model in mind and is engineered for professional developers who want greater control, and more power, to build reliable, large-scale hybrid integrations that often involve multiple clouds and legacy systems. These tend to be less accessible to business users—they’re often guarded tightly by central IT. They’re generally best for projects that are large in scope, though few in number, with release cycles that span month or even years.
• The cloud-service, or “lightweight” iPaaS specializes in ease-of-use for business users, though sacrifices the power of the classic alternative. These typically offer access to a far larger number of endpoints, through the use of events and APIs, and are typically best for smaller projects that need to be unveiled quickly: release cycles are often measured in weeks. They’re also far more accessible to citizen integrators, which promotes productivity and ease of use though also create its own set of challenges. Too often, since these users work outside the purview of central IT, a cloud-service iPaaS can lead to the proliferation of “shadow integrations” that lack approval or oversight, posing risks to system security and data integrity.

Figure 2: Classic vs. cloud service integration  

Many enterprises seek to bridge the iPaaS divide by using multiple integration platforms, sourced from different vendors. This approach can be costly, however: each platform requires different sets of experts; its fragmented nature, moreover, makes it harder to achieve centralized control over the complete IT landscape, especially when integrations involve multiple clouds scattered across different parts of the globe.  

Integration has long been Software AG’s flagship. webMethods, an enterprise software company we acquired in 2007, was an application integration trailblazer and has driven the evolution of our integration products ever since—from the days when ESB was cutting edge, to the present era of the iPaaS. This ongoing growth of our on-premises and cloud integration offerings has kept us at the top of the business—with regular rankings as market leaders from industry analysts like Forrester (Wave) and Gartner (Magic Quadrant).  

Software AG’s approach to enterprise integration builds upon our industry-leading application integration capabilities while seeking to overcome the limitations of the iPaaS product landscape. We’ve recently introduced a whole new category of iPaaS, known as the Super iPaaS, that combines the capabilities of a heavyweight IT-focused and lightweight project-oriented iPaaS into a single platform to enable enterprise integration strategy.  

For the first time, organizations can develop enterprise integration services any way their teams prefer and deploy them in any cloud or region. IT and business leaders now have access to a “single pane of glass” view of all integrations, APIs, and data pipelines—to avoid shadow integrations and reduce the risks that come with a more fragmented integration landscape. Unlike other solutions on the market, Software AG’s Super iPaaS is powerful enough for tackle the most complex hybrid integration projects, with an ease of use that makes it accessible to everyone across the enterprise.

Software AG’s Super iPaaS, is one of the few enterprise integration platforms that offers all five key integration patterns:

• Application integration, to connect applications in the cloud, on-prem, and in-between
• Data integration, via pipelines that fuel analytics and automatically adapt to change
• API management, to manage and optimize APIs with complete control and visibility
• B2B integration, for easy, reliable transactions with any partner or supplier
• Event integration, to make the real time connections necessary to operate in an event-driven architecture

The Super iPaaS gives enterprises the agility to seize new business opportunities through data that’s available anywhere, anytime. It fosters productivity, by allowing more users to accomplish more, together. And it empowers organizations with stronger governance, giving them the visibility to detect when a system or process isn’t right—and quickly respond to minimize disruption. Over time, it will only get better: already, Software AG is leveraging the power of generative AI so that users can interact with the platform in natural language. Eventually, the Super iPaaS will reach the next level of maturity, where it will be able to code integrations by itself, on the go.

Today, even before this is possible, Software AG’s Super iPaaS is the most advanced integration platform ever built. Don’t just take it from us: The most recent Forrester Wave (August, 2023), cited Software AG as a leader with the highest rating in both the “current offering” and “strategy” categories, among 15 iPaaS vendors.  

If you’d like to learn more about Software AG’s approach to integration, and the promise of this new approach, please get in touch. We’d be happy to share more of our expertise.