How iPaaS Transforms Chaos Into Productivity
How iPaaS Transforms Chaos Into Productivity
Why building custom integrations might not always be the best idea
How can an iPaaS solution transform a situation of chaotic information sharing into a productive environment? Before iPaaS existed most information-sharing solutions resulted in chaos. Where are we now?
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I remember what it used to take to build information-sharing projects before iPaaS solutions existed. What I mean by "information-sharing" is projects where there's the need to share information between two or more systems. Usually, there's a list of requirements of how the software should interact with each system, and how the data flows between the various components.
These were projects involving dozens of developers, consultants, and project managers. These projects would sometimes take months to complete, and everyone would have to wait until the very end to just be able to test the solution. Many times the implementation didn't follow exactly what was in the requirements. In the end, you'd have a kind of a half-baked solution that didn't do exactly what people expected.
Two issues contributed to the chaotic environment I just described. First, the systems you wanted to connect often involved completely different technology and communication protocols. Then, integrations were built based on hard requirements coming from a technology perspective. While the first factor can still be a reality today, the second one can easily be avoided.
By using an iPaaS you can empower people with low technical skills—Product Managers, for instance. They can then work on the requirements from an end-user perspective and start creating the integrations themselves. Even if the integrations they create aren't the final ones there's a good chance other people can test them early in the process. And, by iteratively designing and testing the integrations you get a result that better aligns with the initial requirements.
What makes it easy to build integrations using an iPaaS is its ability to work with a multitude of systems. Most iPaaS solutions have the capability of interacting with both cloud-based and also more legacy systems that exist inside a company's network. This alone makes it easier to use an iPaaS than to build an integration from scratch. Even if the iPaaS can't handle the connections with all the systems perfectly, you can start with something that works reasonably well. Then, you can adapt it and evolve it if you have more specific integration requirements.
Another area that's usually overlooked by teams building their integrations from scratch is how data is handled. While it can be simple to understand how information flows between two different systems, it's harder to implement sophisticated data handling patterns. One example is enabling the synchronization of data following strict requirements. How would you manipulate the information on one or more systems when there's an update on one of the connected applications? You'd have to think about and implement things like retries, queueing, information validation, and shape translation.
If ensuring the information flows correctly between systems seems daunting, imagine maintaining the business logic that dictates how the data circulates. This business logic is what you call a workflow. Again, iPaaS solutions offer the advantage of decoupling the configuration of workflows from the engine that runs the integration. On a custom integration, you'd probably embed the workflow information into the code itself, making it complex to maintain it over time. In addition, most iPaaS solutions also have visual UIs that make it easy even for non-technical people to design and understand workflows.
The ability to maintain workflows is crucial if you want to keep your integration aligned with how your organization evolves. Another factor to consider when building your own integration is how scalable it is. Will it be able to handle a sudden increase in the flow of information between the systems you're integrating? Most iPaaS solutions offer scalability as one of their features so you wouldn't have to worry about it yourself. Otherwise, you'd have to maintain the integration code and also the infrastructure it runs on.
All the information flowing between systems, their availability, and the performance of the whole solution need to be visible. Without visibility, you won't be able to understand how the whole integration solution is behaving. Existing iPaaS solutions offer a central viewpoint into the whole integration. Having a centralized view helps you monitor the flow of information, understand how the integrations are performing, and identify possible areas of improvement. In the end, you'll be able to adapt the integration to changing requirements by knowing what is working and what isn't.
As a final note, the fact that iPaaS solutions make it easy for non-technical people to be active members encourages a level of collaboration that you wouldn't get with a custom-built solution. Different stakeholders at different levels in the organization can all participate in the process of building, maintaining, and evolving the integrations you're putting together.
To summarize, with an iPaaS solution you can transform a potentially chaotic situation into a manageable solution. The ability to involve non-technical people, along with increased scalability and visibility make iPaaS a strong alternative compared to building custom integrations.