Integration as a service via a cloud-based platform offers the way to live with existing business processes and applications.

Editor’s note: Because the head of Dell’s Boomi unit, Chris McNabb is within the business of providing the cloud service he describes here, mentioned by Gartner and others as integration-platform-as-a-service.

If you have not already started your organization’s journey to the cloud, make no mistake — possible. Over the past two years, the cloud has evolved from a somewhat risky thanks to lower costs to a highly reliable solution to increase business agility and accelerate business processes.

And it’s now deemed secure enough to encourage many organizations, including the united states government, to adopt a “cloud-first” strategy for all IT growth. That’s why, for example, Gartner, in its Public Cloud Services forecast, sees the software-as-a-service market growing at a compound annual growth rate of 20.2% from 2011 through 2017, and annualized SaaS end-user spending growing from a base of $14.4 billion in 2011 to $45.6 billion in 2017.

So how do you embrace the cloud without disrupting existing business processes? How do you integrate SaaS-based CRM along with your other marketing applications, or cloud-based HR together with your accounting systems, or online collaboration along with your existing project management solution?

[Desire to learn more about who’s offering an iPaaS? Read Informatica Adds Integration Options As Cloud Demand Multiplies.]

Traditional middleware, with its “hub-and-spoke” architecture, simply can’t handle the complexities of the cloud. Channeling data from various applications (the spokes) through a central bus (the hub) works well for a limited set of applications in tightly controlled on-premises IT environments, but anyone who works with traditional middleware understands that these projects are complex and dear, and so they typically require an important commitment of resources and months or maybe years of lead time.

In addition, the increase of hybrid IT, with its mixture of on-premises and cloud environments, is making middleware impractical for most enterprise integration use cases. Why adopt the cloud for greater agility and price savings only to be afflicted by long integration development cycles and high licensing, maintenance and support costs? And why depend on an architecture that was never designed to support the secure movement of information between on-premises and cloud environments — and increases security risks?

Integration within the cloud
The alternative to standard middleware is to accomplish integration across a cloud-based platform that supports the varied integration scenarios presented by hybrid IT, including cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-on-premises, on-premises-to-on-premises, and B2B and EDI integration scenarios. Cloud-based integration, sometimes called integration platform as a service (iPaaS), replaces middleware’s hub-and-spoke model with a distributed model that easily scales to fulfill today’s high-volume requirements.

What are many of the advantages of cloud-based integration? First, it eliminates much of middleware’s complexity. As an example, a visible design interface and prebuilt connectors between applications eliminates programming, while a cloud-based platform relieves organizations of the necessity to manage infrastructure and software. The result’s dramatically faster and simpler integration projects.

Designed for the realities of today’s highly distributed IT infrastructure, cloud-based integration supports common transport methods, standards-based web services, and universal translation capabilities for non-standard data formats. A result of, developers can stand up to hurry quickly on only 1 tool — even a proper training course takes only three days — and still support all in their organizations’ use cases.

Cloud-based integration could also replace legacy ETL and batch data transfers with low-latency, near-real-time integration processing via web services and APIs, enabling far greater agility. Finally, with a single cloud-based integration platform, all active integrations can easily be managed and monitored using a single Web-based console.

Cloud-based integration is in a position for high time
As with any relatively new technology model, only time and experience can silence doubts regarding reliability, scalability, and function. However, the technology underlying cloud-based integration is already well proved, or even Internet-based latency isn’t a problem, because in real-time cloud-to-cloud integration scenarios, the quantity of information that passes between apps at any given time is usually quite small. The resulting delay of just one to two seconds meets most business requirements. Today 17 competitors are included in Gartner’s first iPaaS Magic Quadrant, which says that the “iPaaS market is poised to dramatically grow over the following five years.” And in keeping with published vendor statistics, iPaaS vendors have already supported greater than 400 million customer integration processes a month.

In fact, companies are increasingly using iPaaS for mission-critical tasks. LinkedIn, as an example, is automating its lead-to-cash process by integrating Salesforce.com Sales Cloud with Oracle E-Business Suite. Additionally it is using its cloud-based integration platform to automatically bring multiple disparate data sources into Salesforce.com Sales Cloud to assist the LinkedIn sales team identify high probability opportunities.

Similarly, GoPro is using iPaaS to quickly connect NetSuite with value-added networks and AS2 connections so that it will meet the stern EDI compliance standards of huge retailers that sell GoPro cameras. The answer also performs a SAP translation of XML data across a big volume of transactions to permit for complex movements of inventory within virtual locations.

Your inevitable journey to the cloud doesn’t must be fraught with missed flights, lost luggage, and unnecessary expenses. By considering an application integration strategy that was specifically designed for the cloud, you stand a higher chance of arriving at your destination on time, intact, and in solid financial shape.

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McNabb manages the Boomi business unit of Dell, an integration service, where he’s answerable for operations and strategic direction. He was previously senior VP of software engineering at SunGard Higher Education, with responsibility for software delivery to one,600 … View Full Bio

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