Integration of Everything
The Integration Space
The System’s integration space has constantly evolved from the early days of networking to the Advanced Integration Platforms that exist day. Evolution of Collaborative Platforms, Smart Devices and Internet Standards is redefining the digital Business Experience. Firm like Uber Cabs redefined the taxi experience using Apps and Cloud. User experience and adaption of new Technologies will redefine Business. As of today, System’s integration is about “Software Communication (Ability to Interact) with diverse systems inside and outside of Corporate”. The original need for Integration in an Organization is to communicate using electronic data and messages to make business interconnected. Thus, the communication between organizations is quick, secured and error free. However, today’s Enterprise need for integration is much more than “just communicating” now. The changing Technology landscape of integration defines a new Business user experience. It is about the ability to quickly scale and Respond seamlessly to Clients and Partners across the plethora of Systems and Devices. Responding to Business transactions demand swifter, efficient and cost effective responses across heterogeneous environments in order to sustain and grow. That said the Cloud Applications & Environment, IOT devices (Smart Devices & Mobiles) and Decision Data Analytics are the key additional drivers of new Integration Era. This goes hands on hands and shares the same rationale/Ideology of “Internet-Of-Everything”.
Integration Today and Way Forward
I have been observing the integration space grow from Gentran, Net-Commerce and Enterprise-works. (From Basic message integration of B2B (Business to Business) using EDI standards to Integration on Application Integration (A2A) using ORBs like RMI, CORBA and COM/DCOM based Standards to today's ESB Platform). The System Integration has constantly evolved in the last 2 decades leading to the Current integration Platforms comprising Business Orchestration, Higher Mediation, Data Mappings, Lightweight protocols and Web Services based connectivity. Many organizations have had different systems installed at various points in order to manage the growing Integration requirements. With constantly increasing Integration needs and evolving industry standards of electronic data, the complexity of the integration platform has dramatically increased. This in turn has raised the overall cost and has diminished the efficiency of the Systems and it's ability to Scale. This has an impact on the Velocity for On-boarding new Business and Factor Changes. This has a direct bearing on the business growth of the Corporate. Organizations knowing this have migrated or Started migrating to the Current Integration Platform (Enterprise Service Bus) using a standard model like Service Oriented Architecture. However, leveraging SOA’s benefits fully has been a challenge with many organizations due to their readiness. Before adopting a Platform or an Architecture design it is important to have a clear Business vision for Integration that is in line with the overall Business Goals of the organization.
Thus A clear Vision of Integration and Business is key to adopting a Platform or an Architecture Concept. “Integration in Isolation” will not deliver the result, if it is not a part of the overall design. It is imperative to have Integration as a part of overall Business/Technology Goals
Cloud a key factor in upcoming Integration Models
With popular products like Office 365 and Outlook, Google Apps, Salesforce aggressively pushing for SAAS model, there will be a reduction of On-premises consumption year by year. Companies like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and others are heading and nurturing the growth of online models (Cloud based) instead of On-Premises. At present the Organizational challenges for mid-size firms has been in embracing Cloud in to the overall integration road map due to Cost Constraints and Security Issues. Many Hybrid Integration Models has evolved with On-premises Applications integrating with their own or Partner’s Cloud/ SAAS Applications. Many Device manufactures in future will package the devices and cloud offering together. With more companies embracing the Cloud now and in the future, the Overall costs will significantly come down. The future has more in stock for quality service offerings on cloud instead on on-premises. This will make on-premises licenses mediocre compared to the offering on the cloud. That will demand for more organizations to embrace PAAS and IAAS into their integration environment. A start of that can be seen by the PAAS offering - "Enterprise Integration Platform as Service" (e.g, Dell Boomi, Informatica and MuleSoft CloudHub)
Integration of Everything will be the Future
While Internet of Things (IoT) centers more on device, Internet of Everything is looked at bringing People, Process, Data and Things Jointly to solve the business needs of an Organization. With new internet standard like IPV6, the digital world is all poised to take over the massive network traffic of the future. Internet of Everything has be conceptualized to handle Network Intelligence and Deliver higher Performance. This will create a pressing need to relook at Web services based Integration as it involves new IP protocol, upgraded devices, Apps, Networks and Voluminous data. Internet of Everything will pave the path for Integration of Everything. Technically anything that is digital and is interoperable will get integrated until the required User Interface. New policies on Security, Privacy, Interoperable Standards and Compliance will evolve to meet this growing demand.
Collectively “People + Network + Cloud + Applications + Process + Data + Device” that are Interoperable will define the first generation “Integration of Everything”.
Integration Design Evolution toward Integrate Everything
From designing and coding perspective, the journey of Objects from Software Objects to Device Objects will also have a bearing on the direction and future of “Standards based programming”. With more proprietary devices coming up there will be a lot of Device based programming. However, with regulatory and compliance standards maturing, it will head towards Oriented Programming /API based programming similar to the fundamentals of Object Oriented Programming Structures. The mark-up languages of web-services will become more stable in the integration platform that will help built efficient, faster and in-expensive codes. Legacy integration standards as EDI will continue to exist, however all new developments will find its way into Internet based Integration Standards like Web Services as the Platform evolves.
From the design perspective, it is imperative for integration engineers to know the complete business perspective with respect to the integration needs. The concept of “Integration of Everything” will be independent of Vendors, Products, Closed Devices and Technologies.
Integration of Everything is an architectural concept similar to Service Oriented Architecture. The idea will advocate technology independence to implement the solution. However, the present ESB platforms will scale by adopting these concepts and upgrade their Integration platforms. Niche Service Providers will get to upgrade their Solution Accelerators, Frameworks and Adapters for these Platforms in order to reduce cost and improve Efficiency.
