What is an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)?

It’s no secret that cloud integration is one of the main challenges facing today’s enterprises. To meet the growing need for secure and reliable cloud integration solutions, several vendors have started to offer integration services known as Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS).

What is an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)?

iPaaS, or Integration Platform as a Service, is a self-service cloud-based solution standardizing how applications are integrated. Developers, consultants, and even non-technical users can use iPaaS out of the box to build the integration quickly flow for sharing data within an organization or with multiple companies.

With iPaaS, organizations can more easily connect different applications, data, business processes, and services, whether they are hosted on-premises, in a private cloud, or within a public cloud environment. iPaaS also allows DevOps and IT departments to build integrations quickly and enable real-time updates throughout the organization’s application estate.

How does iPaaS work?

Typically, an Integration Platform as a Service provider hosts application servers and infrastructure data, and provisions integration tooling and middleware that help developers build, test, deploy, and manage the software that lives in the cloud. Most iPaaS offerings also speed up the development of integration flows across a business by using pre-built connectors and business rules to define interactions in multi-tenant environments.

It may help to think of an iPaaS provider as a contractor who is hired to manage and assist with a kitchen renovation. While the homeowner picks out the specific appliances, flooring, lighting, or any other custom design choices they want and can afford, the contractor takes charge of underlying requirements – such as acquiring materials or coordinating with specialists such as electricians and carpenters.

The same can be said with iPaaS: The vendor handles management and governance of the varied services, while the business pursues and requests support for custom application features and software functionality.

Key Components of Integration Platform as a Service

Being a cloud-based tool, iPaaS can manage high volumes of data produced by various environments. The primary objective of iPaaS is to provide essential support during an integration process while keeping disruptions to a minimum level. Let’s look at some core components of iPaaS solutions.

• Connectivity: Firstly, iPaaS solutions ensure that various apps can connect, allowing seamless collaboration.
• Application integration: This component holds the logic for how and when data is communicated between apps. It mainly deals with the routing and orchestration of data.
• Data integration: Here, sender and receiver data objects are distinctly mapped to ensure smooth data association between disparate environments.
• API management: API management implies managing the APIs that are essential in the integration process. These components are a part of the underlying architecture of an iPaaS solution.

Benefits of Integration Platform as a Service

Compared to traditional integration methods, iPaaS delivers these benefits:

• Faster time to value: Operations and development teams can help themselves to iPaaS – they simply subscribe and start integrating.
• Better integration results, with less work and fewer specialized skills: iPaaS typically offers intelligent work-saving tools and a high-productivity interface that can help users “punch above their weight” and achieve better, richer integrations in a short period – and without having to build new integration functionality each time.
• Improved scalability: The self-service model of iPaaS scales easily as your integration needs to grow.
• Reduced integration costs: iPaaS solutions are typically much less expensive and time-consuming than custom integrations, message-oriented middleware, and enterprise integration projects such as enterprise service bus (ESB) and enterprise application integration (EAI). The reduced cost and faster implementation make integration a possibility for more mid-sized and smaller businesses as well.
• Improved connectivity: When processes and data are updated across applications throughout the organization, anyone can get the data they need when they need it.
• Built-in API management: iPaaS eliminates the need to publish customer APIs or combine APIs from other services. It’s all in the iPaaS platform, creating a more scalable and secure solution for managing APIs.
• Simplified and improved B2B integration: Every business has its process for exchanging information with partners. Different applications used at different companies make it difficult to communicate. Businesses can use iPaaS to improve B2B integration and ultimately increase revenue and improve time to market.

How Can iPaaS Benefit Your Organization?

As organizations seek to take advantage of the speed, agility, and economics of the cloud, there’s an increasingly critical need to look at integration in a new way. Integration Platform as a Service is purpose-built to:

• help companies handle the integration requirements of today’s business environment
• future-proof their integration solutions
• increase the value of their IT investments

iPaaS customers realize significant, concrete, cost, and speed-of-implementation benefits. We invite you to consider how iPaaS can help you derive a greater return on investment, faster time-to-value, and increased business success.

How Do You Know If You Need an iPaaS?

An iPaaS is ideal for small businesses and single-department projects. It can help a small business operate digitally, allowing customers to interact with and do business on its website and mobile apps. For department projects, an iPaaS can help teams connect the SaaS applications they use in their operations.

However, if you are looking to tackle large enterprise integration projects that span across business units, like hyper-automation, customer journey optimization, cloud transformation, and cross-enterprise data synchronization, you need a Hybrid Integration Platform.

Conclusion

With widespread cloud adoption by businesses, iPaaS has become an integral component of cloud computing technology. iPaaS, along with other cloud apps, has allowed organizations to handle emerging problems such as cross-platform integration. iPaaS platforms are standardized on how applications are to be integrated with an organization, which has helped automate business processes and enabled data sharing across platforms with greater agility than legacy systems.

Companies leveraging iPaaS technologies can cut down on manual work and lower dependency on emails and spreadsheets. iPaaS helps organizations ensure complete visibility into their business, increases the speed of their operations, and ensures enhanced accuracy across deployed platforms.