Boomi whitepaper the_quest_for_cloud_integration_strategy_final
- 1. The power to do more The Quest for a Cloud Integration Strategy Enterprise Integration Historically, enterprise-wide integration and its countless business benefits have only been “The successful adoption available to large companies due to the high costs of purchasing and implementing integration of SaaS solutions solutions, which until recently amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those who could will transform usage afford to purchase and implement enterprise integration solutions realized cost efficiencies from automated business processes spanning multiple systems, the elimination of costly from purpose built and error-prone manual data entry, and faster responsiveness to changing business needs. point solutions to integration into mission Small and medium sized organizations, unable to afford comprehensive solutions, critical processes.” generally had no other alternative but to piece together a combination of 1-to- 1 integration solutions with custom code, or face the burden of dealing with siloed — Ray Wang, Forrester Research business applications. Fortunately, the development of Software as a Service applications has leveled the playing field in terms of affordability but it has also changed the integration game significantly, due to the unique characteristics of the model itself. Advent of Software as a Service (SaaS) The Software as a S ervice (SaaS) model of software deployment has revolutionized the industry and opened the door for businesses of all sizes to gain access to enterprise grade applications with affordable, pay-as-you-go pricing. According to IDC (2005), the key characteristics of SaaS applications are: ƒ Network-based access to and management of commercially available software ƒ Multi-tenancy architecture which enables multiple customers or users to access the same data model ƒ Centralized feature updating, which eliminates the need to download patches and upgrades ƒ Activities that are managed from central locations rather than at each customer’s site, enabling customers to access applications remotely via a web browser SaaS Implications for Integration While SaaS applications offer outstanding value in terms of features and capabilities relative to cost, they have introduced several challenges specific to integration. The first issue is that the majority of SaaS applications are point solutions and only service one line of business. As a result, companies without a method of synchronizing data between multiple lines of business are at a serious disadvantage in terms of maintaining accurate data, forecasting, and automating key business processes. According to Ray Wang (2008), Analyst at Forrester Research, “The successful adoption of SaaS solutions will transform usage from purpose built point solutions to integration into mission critical processes.” Copyright 2011 Dell Boomi, Inc. All rights reserved. www.boomi.com
- 2. APIs are insufficient The four primary choices businesses currently have for SaaS Many SaaS providers have responded to the integration challenge by integration include: building a custom-code solution based on developing application programming interfaces (APIs). Unfortunately, a SaaS vendor’s application programming interfaces (APIs); accessing and managing data via an API requires a significant purchasing conventional integration software; subscribing to an amount of coding as well as ongoing maintenance due to frequent integration-as-a-service (IaaS) solution; and engaging professional modifications and updates. Furthermore, despite the advent of services or a system integrator. According to Benoit Lheureux, web services- there is little to no standardization or consensus on an analyst for Gartner, “The challenge for customers is to know the structure or format of SaaS APIs. As a result, the end users’ when to choose one approach over another. The answer depends IT department expends an excess amount of time and resources heavily on each customer’s particular situation, including factors developing and maintaining a unique method of communication for such as internal integration skills and overall B2B strategies.” the API of each SaaS application deployed within their organization. The following factors should also be considered when evaluating the four integration options: Data transmission security SaaS providers go to great length to ensure that customer data Scalability is secure within the hosted environment. However, the need to Ensure that the integration solution chosen is able to grow with transfer data from on-premise systems or applications behind your business. Consider whether it will scale across multiple the firewall with SaaS applications hosted outside of the geographic locations and, if yes, will the IT staff be able to monitor all integration activity from one central location? Also, client’s data center poses new challenges that need to be many SaaS applications have very particular usage restrictions addressed by the integration solution of choice. It is critical about how much data can be sent through their API in a given that the integration solution is able to synchronize data bi- time window. It is critical that as data volumes increase that the directionally from SaaS to On-Premise without opening the solution adequately is aware of and handles those restrictions. firewall. Best of breed integration providers can offer the ability to do so by utilizing the same security as when a user is Resources (implementation, maintenance) manually typing data into a web browser behind the firewall. The amount of resources required varies greatly amongst the integration strategies above. Companies that choose to build or Integration On-Demand? buy integration solutions should be prepared to allot significant Forward thinking companies that have realized the outstanding value amounts of IT time and budget for the installation and ongoing proposition of the SaaS model are looking for IT infrastructure and maintenance of servers, software, and code. For businesses with support that offers the same. End users research, try, and purchase limited IT resources, outsourcing to an Integration as a Service SaaS applications in a self-service manner without ever leaving their (IaaS) provider is highly recommended. However, even with hosted web browser. Following purchase, maintenance is low as there are no solutions, it is important to query each provider so as to determine servers to install or maintain and updates are handled centrally by the resources required to build and maintain integrations. the SaaS provider. Savvy businesses are seeking integration solutions built from the ground up as pure SaaS which also offer the ability to Cost build, deploy, and manage integration processes from a web browser. Cost is a critical factor in the decision to build, buy or partner. Building custom integrations is often found to be a major drain Integration Strategies on internal IT resources. The cost of an integration solution One critical integration challenge for companies is deciding to support SaaS and cloud-based applications should be just what kind of a SaaS integration provider they’re going to affordable and comparable to a SaaS pay-as-you-go model. use. In addition to SaaS, many businesses are supported by a complex ecosystem consisting of a combination of on-premise, platform-as-a-service (PaaS), e-commerce, and cloud-based applications. Rather than look at each integration project in a silo, forward thinking companies select an integration strategy that will support all of the above in a single, seamless solution.
- 3. Compatible Applications & Systems Integration solutions are not always a “one size fits all” situation- many are only built to “The challenge for accommodate specific applications and limit a company’s ability to optimize integration by customers is to know incorporating throughout the enterprise. Furthermore, if additional applications are purchased in the future- the solution should have the ability to extend to accommodate them and migrate when to choose data if need be. one approach over another. The answer Workflow depends heavily on each Best of breed integration solutions offer more than just the transformation of data between customer’s particular two different formats. Workflow, which encompasses the end-to-end series of steps situation, including needed to automate a business process, is mandatory to ensure the complete automation factors such as internal of complex business processes. Secure and reliable communication, content-based integration skills and routing, business logic rules handling, data transformation, cleansing, and validation are overall B2B strategies.” examples of real-world requirements to address what are otherwise manual tasks. — Benoit Lheureux, Gartner On-Premise Software Conventional integration software has been around significantly longer than most Integration as a Service (IaaS) providers and, therefore, was a popular alternative to coding custom integrations. Packaged software is costly to purchase, install and maintain on- site and is unlikely to extend to the cloud. In addition, these solutions were not developed to meet the unique requirements of SaaS applications such as multi-tenancy. For businesses that have already purchased software- it may be possible to leverage their current investment if the provider offers a SaaS connector strategy. Unfortunately, like many on-premise software companies, the integration software providers are probably puzzling over what their SaaS strategy needs to be. In order to be optimized for SaaS, their current technology will need to be re-engineered from the ground up and will completely disrupt their on-premise solution. Integration-as-a-Service The recent development of Integration as a Service is a natural outcome of the convergence of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and SaaS. As businesses of all sizes migrate to SaaS and cloud-based applications, the need for solutions to allow them to interoperate and exchange data is obvious- as is the call for such solutions to be deployed and purchased in the same on-demand model. When developed and built from the ground up in a pure SaaS model*, IaaS solutions are cost-effective, scalable, and flexible. Businesses minimize the use of internal IT resources as the service is typically made available in a completely self-service model, and can be configured, deployed and manage right from the web browser without having to write code or install any software or hardware on-premise. * Buyer beware of on-premise software For organizations with multiple business units, these solutions can be deployed to vendors who market themselves as Cloud by multiple geographic locations from a centrally managed, web-based dashboard. CIOs hosting their packaged software product in a can also gain a comprehensive view of all integration processes within their organization data center. That is an ASP model not SaaS with this same dashboard. This is a growing challenge as individual departments and it will not scale over time, forcing their purchase SaaS application subscriptions often independently from one another. customers to absorb the increasing costs.
- 4. Best of breed IaaS providers offer a single, seamless solution for Prior to selecting a Systems Integrator, be sure to take into a business’ entire application portfolio including on-premise, consideration the solution(s) they are advocating for the integration cloud-based, and SaaS environments. Many providers offer pre- project at hand and take into account the five factors described above: built connectors to leading application as well as the ability to Scalability; Cost; Resources; Compatibility of Applications & Systems: develop custom connectors quickly and easily via visual, drag- and Workflow. Beware of SI’s that are promoting antiquated integration and-drop technology. As mentioned previously, IaaS providers solutions that are not optimized for SaaS and cloud environments as should offer a secure method of data transmission both in the they will quickly defeat the SaaS value proposition and will not scale. cloud and behind the company’s firewall for on-premise systems. Fortunately, many SI’s recognize the value of on-demand Integration as a Service solutions and add value through their domain expertise and Building Custom Integration willingness to solve the integration challenge on behalf of their clients. For those businesses considering building custom integrations, there For those businesses that prefer not to engage an SI but would need are several key pieces that must be included in order to develop initial and ongoing assistance withintegration, many IaaS providers a complete integration solution: the integration process itself, offer managed services to completely take on both the initial setup including learning the proprietary API’s of the applications being of the integration as well as the ongoing maintenance requirements. integrated in order to build “connectors” to extract and load data; The main benefit of this alternative, in addition to reducing the monitoring tools to provide logging to simplify error resolution; strain on internal resources, is the ability to outsource integration redundancy mechanisms to automatically handle scenarios where projects to the experts in that area. As always, it is best to thoroughly the applications being integrated become unavailable; and resiliency investigate the provider, products, vertical expertise and services to support the frequent release cycles of SaaS applications and their they offer to ensure that they are developed and deployed in the corresponding APIs. Most people only account for the integration cloud to ensure compatibility with like applications and systems. process itself, overlooking the other critical functionality and wind up spending exhorbinant time maintaining their custom code. Conclusion Custom coding integration processes is generally considered to be In summary, the advent of Software as a Service and Cloud expensive, time-consuming and a drain on internal resources. Some Computing have revolutionized the software industry by find it to be a desirable option when a business needs to quickly providing access to enterprise-grade software and services via connect no more than two applications, the data value is low, and it the web to businesses of all sizes. SaaS and cloud environments is not expected that the applications will change. However, given the are characterized by web-based delivery, multi-tenancy, and dynamic nature of SaaS and cloud-based applications and the high centralized management and updates- completely unlike traditional value of the data exchanged between them- that scenario is rare. software. As a result, new infrastructure and supporting services, such as integration, are crucial to the success of this model. Managed Services / System Integrators In choosing an integration strategy, businesses must be acutely aware Though the introduction of on-demand Integration as a Service of the repercussions of the path chosen as a poor choice could result (IaaS) offerings, many growing businesses now have access to low in an ongoing drain of valuable IT resources and exponential costs cost, low maintenance integration solutions. However, companies to the organization. It is equally critical that businesses consider the with extremely limited or no IT resources also have the option of need for scalability- both in terms of the growth of the customer base outsourcing their integration projects to either a Systems Integrator and the expansion of back-office solutions to include future purchases (SI) or electing Managed Services from their integration provider. of SaaS, PaaS, and cloud computing applications. Best-of-breed integration solutions will mirror the SaaS value proposition and allow for scalability and expansion as businesses grow and change over time. For More Information Dell Boomi Offices Contact your account executive to learn more 801 Cassatt Road 473 Jackson Street about Dell Boomi, or visit www.boomi.com. Suite 120 Third Floor Berwyn, PA 19312 San Francisco, CA 94111 United States United States 1.800.732.3602