What is iPaaS? Due to the growing need for reliable and secure digital transformation strategies, organizations have begun to adopt cloud integration solutions such as iPaaS, or Integration Platform as a Service.
iPaaS is a cloud-based integration platform (also called hybrid integration platform or HIP) that makes it much easier to connect applications and business processes. This suite of cloud solutions holistically standardizes how applications are integrated, simplifying the move of data across applications while at the same time providing critical integration functionality right out of the box. Using iPaaS, integration flows that connect applications residing on premises or in the cloud can be developed and deployed without users having to install or manage any hardware or middleware.
An iPaaS hosts applications and data, builds and runs data connectors, and deploys rules for governing the movement of data among and between applications. It can also manage APIs (application programming interfaces) and control data quality. An iPaaS package generally includes the server, the data infrastructures, the middleware used to connect applications with databases, the business rules that govern the interactions, and the software tools needed to build, test, deploy, and manage software applications in the cloud. The iPaaS vendor takes over the burden of developing the software connections and maintaining the hardware. Providers usually set up iPaaS for multi-tenancy, in which multiple customers can use the same instance of software. This cuts down on expenses because customers can share system and maintenance costs.
1. Robust set of prebuilt connectors
Once you have configured a connector, you can reuse it across your enterprise, keeping vendor-specific details in the connector.
2. Ability to create custom connectors
Your iPaaS should be able to easily create new connectors from services and APIs that already exist in your catalog. This way you can extend existing APIs and breathe new life into existing services, making them available within your iPaaS.
3. Strong data mapping functionality
iPaaS uses data mapping tools that allow you to create a common data model between systems that you can then use within your integration. Maps can be updated, leveraged, or extended to insulate orchestration flows.
4. Easily manage service interactions
An iPaaS should deliver a visual interface that can be used for constructing reusable workflows and that allows the integration specialist to build, test and deploy new integrations. Once a workflow has been created, it can be reused, and new integrations can be created quickly by changing the service endpoints.
5. Configurable workflow triggers
An iPaaS should also offer flexibility in how workflows can be invoked. In order to cover most use cases, workflows that are scheduled, event driven, or directly invokable via API should all be supported.
6. Consumability
Connector instances should present themselves as APIs. When your developers are building an app that needs to read customer data, rather than contacting your CRM administrator, they should be able to just invoke the connector which contains the credentials for reading your CRM. You’ll also want to control who is able to invoke the connector, so you need...
7. Seamless integration with API Management
In order to secure implementation, you need to be able to seamlessly surface exposed API within an API Management solution.
iPaaS is commonly used by large business-to-business (B2B) companies that need to integrate their on-premises data and applications with cloud data and applications. iPaaS is especially popular when speedy release time is key. Although IT departments could handle integration themselves, it can be more efficient and faster to use a third-party iPaaS provider instead.
A variety of factors, including customer expectations, staff departures, and fluctuating demand for certain tools, causes the needs of a company to be constantly changing. IT teams can’t keep up with custom integrations every time a new tool is adopted or an existing one needs modifying. As such, they are looking for ways for the end user to take over the integration management of new tools. iPaaS solutions can standardize how an organization takes on new applications and can ease process automation and the move of transactional data from the point of deployment.
An iPaaS will:
1. Efficient
iPaaS makes app connections faster and easier, without the delays of traditional integration techniques. Low coding and sometimes no coding is required. This means that APIs can be generated in minutes as opposed to days or weeks.
2. Cost-effective
Rather than spending hundreds of thousands (or more) on integrations, iPaaS has an affordable monthly/yearly subscription fee. You pay as you go rather than investing a large amount up front.
3. Scalable
With iPaaS, you can easily add (or remove) services based on the needs of your business, without the labor, cost, hardware, and time commitment.
4. Compliance
iPaaS solutions offer more advanced security and governance features than do traditional integration solutions, satisfying compliance standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA, etc. They also support the latest enterprise authentication technology and advanced API logging capabilities.
5. Real-Time Integration
Because iPaaS technology is cloud-native and can quickly synchronize data both cloud-to-cloud and ground-to-cloud, it is uniquely suited to handle a high volume of real-time data integrations.
6. Ideal for multi-tenant applications
An iPaaS reduces integration redundancies and at the same time offers rapid scalability for onboarding new tenants. As it is cloud-based, it also eliminates the hardware and software requirements of multi-tenant architecture.
7. Unlimited horizontal scalability for IoT
Unlike traditional integration solutions, iPaaS can handle the horizontal scalability that Internet of Things integrations require.
