What is iPaaS?

With the rise of cloud computing, data and applications are now distributed across more platforms and locations than ever. This drives demand for iPaaS solutions that bring distributed resources and systems together in a manageable, flexible way, even across hybrid cloud, or multi-cloud environments. An iPaaS connects systems that would otherwise be siloed across a diverse enterprise IT landscape. It provides a wide array of end-users with the ability to integrate and manage various applications and data in a consistent manner.

The marketplace for iPaaS is evolving fast. Traditionally, iPaaS provides an on-demand integration platform for citizen developers to connect applications, APIs, devices and data for automation. Today there is enterprise iPaaS (EiPaaS), which adds the scalability, security, high availability, and performance needed for large-scale implementations.

Building on this further is a "Super iPaaS” which serves all users—from IT specialists to business technologists. It is AI-enabled and enterprise-ready, and connects everything—applications, data, APIs, devices and B2B—across complex hybrid, multi-cloud environments. It can even incorporate sophisticated data integration technologies for big data sources.

An iPaaS allows users to connect data and applications that are deployed in different environments, both on-premises and in the cloud, via pre-built connectors and protocols. These connections standardize communication between applications and facilitate real-time data exchange through a mutually understood language.

Automated integrations, orchestrated by iPaaS, help streamline operations through the delivery of accurate, free-flowing data across all an enterprise’s systems. For example, an enterprise can connect inventory management software with its messaging application and automate a process between the applications, such as receiving a Slack notification to fulfill an order the moment someone places it.

An iPaaS makes the entire ecosystem of integrations visible and understandable with dashboards and a user-friendly interface. Many iPaaS offerings have low-code/no-code drag-and-drop capabilities so business leaders and citizen integrators can assemble and deploy new integrations, as well as retire or replace existing ones. While an iPaaS that offers a more heavyweight solution for professional integrators has the advantage of offering greater control, scalability and better governance.

Core iPaaS capabilities

Most iPaaS platforms can connect between several applications, platforms, and systems.
Common capabilities generally include:

• Centralized visibility of integrations to monitor performance including latency, resource utilization and workflow performance.
• Easy-to-use interfaces for creating and managing integrations including platform deployment, data integration and application management processes.
• Pre-built integration connectors that can integrate a comprehensive list of popular SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) applications.
• Easy modification or simple deployment of purpose-built connectors for custom applications or new, innovative technologies.
• Connectivity support for standard protocols such as HTTP, FTP, Advanced Messaging Queuing Protocol and Open Data Protocol.
• Guided integrations for bespoke integrations and management of legacy applications.
• Automatic data translation to facilitate data sharing in formats such as JSON and XML.
• Orchestration for automating processes or synchronizing data in real-time.
• Standard security features such as access control, single sign-on and data encryption.

Multi-function iPaaS capabilities

Multi-function iPaaS solutions, such as webMethods.io, expand on basic integration scenarios to offer a far richer set of capabilities along the integration continuum provided by API management tools, enterprise service buses (ESBs), data integration systems, and B2B gateways.

What should you look for in an iPaaS?

So, you’re ready to accelerate your cloud journey with an iPaaS. But how do you choose the best iPaaS solution for your business? Here are three factors to look for when shopping for an iPaaS:

1. Does the iPaaS align with your business strategy?

Some organizations need an iPaaS for integrating everything with ERP. Some organizations want to focus on the insights that they can extract from production lines. Others want to launch new digital services. And some have a diverse array of needs.

Identify your unique strategic business usages for integration—whether that be data integration, process automation, B2B integration or all of the above—and look for iPaaS providers aligned with those usages.

2. Does the iPaaS enable modern application architecture?

Identify integration’s role in your modern architecture and choose a vendor that can fulfill those needs. For example, integration is needed to stitch together the smaller deployable components used in cloud-native applications.
API-led business strategies rely on an integration platform to assemble composite APIs in various configurations for a range of products and consumers.

An iPaaS that aligns with your architectural objectives puts you in a much better position as your enterprise deploys, develops and enables new components over time.

3. Does your iPaaS empower both citizen integrators and professional developers?

As demand for IT expertise continues to surpass supply (a problem that was only exacerbated by the pandemic), an iPaaS that offers citizen coders the ability to build and modify integrations is an asset. Putting integration in the hands of business users can accelerate your digital transformation strategy and bring new products and services to market faster.

Citizen integrator capabilities, such as drag-and-drop interfaces to build, modify and implement integrations, allow a wider range of stakeholders to leverage iPaaS capabilities.

Still, there’s a benefit of a high-code environment for integration specialists who want greater control and feature sets.

Identify the level of maturity you need for your integration strategy, from citizen integrators to specialists, and look for vendors that offer a unified platform that serves all your internal users.

What is the difference between iPaaS, PaaS and EiPaaS?

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) uses third-party providers to host cloud-based applications delivered over the internet. Many, but not all, of these applications are accessed through a browser. These days, a large organization may have hundreds or even thousands of independent SaaS applications—which can introduce risks of vendor lock-in, interoperability issues, data silos and disconnected information.

A platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is a broader computing platform hosted in the cloud that lets developers in an organization easily build, deploy and manage their own applications without the complexity of dealing with operating systems and defined infrastructure.

An iPaaS solution offers the best features of SaaS and PaaS. iPaaS solutions offer integration capabilities for connecting applications from different vendors and across different environments. For companies that rely on various legacy and SaaS applications across multiple departments, an iPaaS acts as the central hub that unifies the information and processes.

Similar to iPaaS, an enterprise integration platform-as-a-service (EiPaaS) is a collection of integration technologies, but more so designed to support enterprise-class integration scenarios. This generally means features including high availability, disaster recovery, security, SLAs and technical support.

With an easy, fast and simplified solution to integration, you’ll be able to solve your most pressing transformation initiatives, unlock innovation and modernize rapidly.

1. Transform your business

Don’t leave your core legacy systems behind on your road toward digital transformation and cloud platforms.

An iPaaS allows your organization to extend all of your existing applications, data and services by transforming them into a foundation for new capabilities. Adopt new SaaS applications and integrate with core systems for added value, better business visibility and access to all the data you have.

2. Modernize your business

Modernize your business with the rapid development and deployment of APIs to power mobile and web applications, safely and securely, reusing data and services from existing applications.

The ability to seamlessly configure, deploy and integrate with APIs of any software or system allows you to rapidly grow with success. “Everything-as-an-API” automation accelerates DevSecOps and CI/CD support for supporting frequent, predictable and reliable releases, which is a key business requirement for customers.

3. Accelerate innovation

To stay ahead of competitors, there’s a need to innovate toward new digital capabilities and products. The challenge is bringing those innovative ideas to life.

Building a differentiating digital product or service requires access to data locked away in applications, databases and legacy systems. With an iPaaS, you can connect data with customers to open new opportunities and innovative possibilities, such as upsell and cross-sell, new revenue streams and new markets.

While integration sounds like a fool-proof route to success, businesses using iPaaS software can still encounter some significant road bumps.

API and data complexity

Data interoperability, automation, real-time processing, and security all rely on APIs which function as the connectors in an iPaaS solution. These provide the tools with which different applications and systems can communicate and share data. They must therefore seamlessly interact with each other—as well as disparate enterprise systems and services—at the same time.

Ensuring that data can be shared across applications is one of the biggest challenges to iPaaS, even with standards-based protocols. Data can be inconsistent, visibility impaired and applications/APIs can have different requirements.

Data sovereignty, where every country retains the right to govern the data that is used within its borders, also creates challenges. Creating the same integrations repeatedly in different regions, with different teams and various platforms means enterprises may struggle to release the value trapped in its data.

API data integrators must take a lifecycle approach to data analytics, ensuring data flows from one system to another—putting all the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, but with absolute flexibility.

Coordinating across hybrid environments

It can be challenging to create a single and consistent view when integrating systems from disconnected environments. Often, solutions that only support cloud integrations can limit companies with on-premises legacy applications. And iPaaS offerings that only manage the most modern applications often leave out mainframe data, for example, that many companies still rely on.

An iPaaS that supports hybrid integrations, on the other hand, enables companies to utilize all the systems they rely on and seamlessly move data between their on-premises applications, data streams, SaaS applications, legacy data stores and cloud data platforms.

Good governance across applications and geographies

Ensuring security across cloud applications can be difficult when different applications have incompatible security profiles. Weaknesses in security can have severe implications for a company’s services, its customers, and operational excellence.

Managing user identities and access across all applications and data flows in hybrid environments, for example, is essential for security. So iPaaS must protect both the application itself, and a company’s diverse array of users, by ensuring that only authorized requests enable access to services and data in the iPaaS environment.

Symbiotic business/IT productivity

As low-cost competitors move into the market, companies are required to quickly onboard and integrate new services and applications that offer customers a better experience. This also prevents customer churn.

This may, however, mean that an IT backlog starts to grow exponentially. And, if business users do not get the innovative solutions and services they want quickly, there is the danger that they will integrate them without specific approval from IT—possibly using their own integration solutions.

This so-called shadow IT can cause chaos, with significant security risks and compliance concerns. It can also create serious inefficiencies in the IT infrastructure. However, shadow IT that meets customer needs can also provide an organization with new opportunities for innovation and productivity—and should, eventually, be properly integrated.

The key to success is finding a solution that aligns business and IT under a common goal. This allows more users to get more done, together, with less work—and reduces incidents of under-the-radar citizen integrations.

Scalability for growing data volumes

An increase in data volume is unavoidable. Platforms that are not designed with scalability in mind run the risk of being overwhelmed by a surge in data or becoming less performant or affordable as data grows over a period of years. When an iPaaS solution cannot manage the company’s data volumes, it can create system performance issues or delayed insights. The best solutions can scale on demand to manage high volumes of requests and data traffic for demanding workloads. A rare few even offer data integration as part of their platform solution—which can take data operations to the next level.

Maintaining agility

Integrating and automating everything—from applications to device data and beyond—makes processes more efficient and the business more agile. However, as public and private cloud ecosystems grow, the number of integration platforms businesses support grows with them.

The solution lies in an iPaaS that can synchronize data and automate any kind of integration across multi-cloud, private cloud, and on-prem applications as it scales to address evolving business needs.

With an easy, fast, and simplified integration solution, companies can solve their most pressing transformation initiatives, unlock innovation, and modernize rapidly.

Typically, the business value of iPaaS comes from:

• Organizations can maintain their preferred tooling—online or off, in any combination in the cloud, on premises, or hybrid—to design, develop, and deploy integrations anywhere. Thanks to central governance, and a UI accessible by business leaders and IT, they will never have to build the same integration twice.
• By adopting new SaaS applications and integrating with core systems for added value, organizations can adapt as fast as the technology landscape evolves. iPaaS enables better business visibility and access to all data so they can make decisions and act on them immediately. They can develop integrations using any tooling their team prefers, and then deploy them in any cloud or region in a click.

A. Better productivity and performance

Using an iPaaS allows more users to get more done, together, with less work. iPaaS automates business processes and workflows across applications, reducing manual entry, duplications, and delays. The ability to seamlessly configure, deploy and integrate with APIs of any software or system allows enterprises to rapidly grow with success.

With a unified integration platform, teams can spend less time learning and can collaborate more. Teams can build applications and experiences and deploy them as APIs in one motion. Business technologists can automate workflows using generative AI but manage them centrally to avoid shadow integrations.

B. Better governance, reduced risk

With iPaaS, enterprises can better monitor, manage, and operate integrations, APIs, or data pipelines across complex, hybrid, multi-cloud infrastructures across geographies without running into compliance issues. They can meet global needs for data sovereignty laws with central management to assure governance. A powerful iPaaS solution ensures centralized control and distributed execution, so that integrations can run anywhere.

Here are three things to consider when looking for an iPaaS solution:

1. Does the iPaaS align with business strategy?
   Some organizations need an iPaaS for integrating everything with their enterprise resource planning software. Some want to focus on insights that they can extract from production lines. Others want to launch new digital services.
   Before deciding on an iPaaS solution, organizations must identify the unique strategic business usages for integration—whether that be data integration, process automation, B2B integration or all of the above—and look for iPaaS providers aligned with those usages.
   
   
2. Does the iPaaS work well with a modern application architecture?
   An iPaaS that aligns with an organization’s architectural objectives puts them in a much better position for the future, as they deploy, develop and enables new components over time. A unified API and integration platform makes this easier to achieve.
   For example, API-led business strategies rely on an integration platform to assemble composite APIs in various configurations for a range of products and consumers.
   
   
3. Does iPaaS empower both citizen integrators and professional developers?
   As demand for IT expertise continues to surpass supply, an iPaaS that offers citizen coders the ability to build and modify integrations is an asset. Putting integration in the hands of business users can accelerate a digital transformation strategy and bring new products and services to market faster.
   Citizen integrator capabilities, such as drag-and-drop interfaces to build, modify and implement integrations, allow a wider range of stakeholders to leverage iPaaS capabilities. As mentioned, there are benefits of a high-code environment for integration specialists who want greater control and feature sets.
   Organizations should identify the level of maturity needed for their integration strategy, from citizen integrators to specialists, and look for vendors that offer a unified platform that serves all their internal users.

Use cases and examples of iPaaS

Some of the high-level use cases of iPaaS include application-to-application integration, B2B integration, process automation, and data integration. These are explained below with real-world use cases provided.

1. Application-to-application integration
   Integration allows applications to seamlessly interact with each other as well as with disparate enterprise systems and services at the same time. By connecting applications to each other, and to systems or data—on premises or in the cloud—integrators can reduce manual intervention and automate interfaces and data flows.
   An example is Foreach Brewing, an Amsterdam-based microbrewery that needed to reduce repetitive manual tasks. Counting inventory in the warehouse, compiling accounting reports and repeatedly checking to see if products had reached the right customers took valuable time away from strategizing and growing the business.
   By using an enterprise-grade iPaaS, Foreach acquired better visibility into its operations and achieved a more effective way to work. All applications connect seamlessly, so, for example, when a customer places an order, the team receives an instant notification on Slack and can immediately fulfil it.
   
   
2. B2B integration
   Business to business (B2B) integration ensures that enterprises can provide third-party partners with access to their services, applications, and data. An iPaaS that incorporates B2B integration ensures all disparate applications can communicate effortlessly, and all B2B communications are in the right format and in the right place. It can also ensure the business can enforce security standards and audit data flow to partners.
   An example is Komatsu, one of the world’s largest suppliers of utility, construction, and mining equipment. The firm had complex business operations built on a legacy ERP system that was having difficulties sharing data with third parties.
   Komatsu used a B2B gateway to integrate its trading partners, enabling them to manage business processes and link related documents. Importantly, by integrating 100 years of data once locked into the legacy system, Komatsu gained a “single source of truth” for all B2B transactions moving forward.
   
   
3. Workflow automation
   An iPaaS expedites business processes and workflows by synchronizing data and automating integrations, eliminating data silos and allowing for better visibility and easy access to data.
   One example is Digital Dubai, the government office charged with facilitating the city’s smart transformation. With an iPaaS solution, Digital Dubai built a unified integration backbone for its various government entities with API, BPMS (Business Process Management) and automation support layers.
   It automated relevant processes on the back end, creating smoother journeys for users on the other side. With that it could enhance its services on streamlined mobile apps and self-service kiosks and remove manual processes, replacing in-person visits for things such as acquiring a new business license.
   
   
4. Data integration
   A DataOps-enabled iPaaS can eliminate any data integration friction, enabling an organization to deliver analytics-ready data to improve real-time decision-making with data flow visibility and data pipeline resiliency. This reduces the costs and risks associated with data flow across an organization.
   Here is an example: BT’s OpenReach digital network division was challenged by having multiple versions of the same data from different systems. This led to incorrect operations reporting and analysis, so BT needed a solution to make all its data sets available for analysis in a seamless and automated way across the organization through a bespoke data lake.
   BT OpenReach also required a solution that supported on-premises and cloud environments, multicloud, and cloud data migration and could manage unexpected changes to data structure, semantics, and infrastructure.
   An iPaaS solution combined real-time workflows with application and data integration, leading to an explosion of user adoption, and genuine business results.

What can you expect from an iPaaS solution today, and what’s being developed for future capabilities? Here is a snapshot of where the market is headed.

Present capabilities of iPaaS

The current iPaaS market offers a rich set of capabilities relating to various functions required to connect applications, services and data for free-flowing information, such as API management, security, B2B and MFT capabilities.

The tried-and-true classic integration patterns for data consistency are generally supported in the current market, allowing users to create automated workflows and processes in a few steps. Most integration providers also offer hybrid architecture capabilities for connecting the on-premises, private cloud and public cloud applications. These providers meet the needs of many personas that expand beyond IT, so all can participate.

Evolving capabilities of iPaaS

The iPaaS market is evolving in its ability to run enterprise-class, multi-cloud orchestrations, giving customers the freedom to be cloud agnostic.

There’s also an emergence of low code streaming capabilities, which is allowing business technologists to access streaming data in easy-to-use features and integrate without waiting for IT.

Data integration and analytics are advancing, for example with machine learning capabilities, to generate better business insights and make smarter integration decisions.

Future capabilities of iPaaS

The future capabilities of the iPaaS market includes the expansion of automation—bringing apps into the discussion. In the future, business technologists will be able to easily build daily-use business apps for themselves and their team of analysts in the platform, blurring the lines between low code app development and low code integrations.

With the expansion of cloud data warehouses, reverse ETL will also shape the future market as app and data integration become adjacent use cases. Once the data is driven into a cloud data warehouse through the reverse ETL process, the analyzed data and insights can be used to influence existing business processes, and this data can be synchronized back into the original source systems, like ERP and CRM.

Lastly, the role and composition of the integration center of excellence (CoE) will change with different personas now playing a role in developing integrations and in need of collaboration and governance.

High-level use cases of iPaaS includes application integration, B2B integration, data integration and process automation. Learn more about each use case, and how four Software AG customers utilize them.

1. Application integration

Integrating your applications allows you to stitch together everything that keeps your business running—and makes it run better.

Despite investing in a range of apps for online sales, CRM and internal communications, Foreach Brewing, an Amsterdam-based microbrewery, realized that better integration was needed to run the business.

Foreach Brewing needed to find an integration solution to solve their repetitive manual tasks, such as counting inventory in the warehouse, compiling accounting reports and repeatedly checking to see if products had reached the right customers—all of which that took away time from strategizing on growing the business.

Using Software AG’s powerful and easy-to-use cloud-based iPaaS, Foreach acquired better visibility into their operations and a more effective way to work. All applications are now seamlessly connected, so for example, when a customer places an order, the team receives an instant notification on Slack and can immediately fulfil it.

2. B2B integration

An iPaaS can offer B2B integration—from partner management to managed file transfers—to ensure all communications are in the right format and put in the right place.

Komatsu, one of the world’s largest suppliers of utility, construction and mining equipment, faced complex business operations built on one legacy ERP system that could only process CSV files in batch jobs. Subsidiaries knew it needed the right middleware to share data with third parties.

With Software AG, Komatsu utilized the B2B gateway to integrate and manage trading partners, manage business processes and link related documents. Importantly, by integrating 100 years of data once locked into the legacy system, Komatsu gained a “single source of truth” for all B2B transactions moving forward.

3. Process automation

Integration and automation make business processes more efficient, and an iPaaS expands these capabilities. An iPaaS expedites your business processes and workflows by synchronizing data and automating integrations, eliminating data silos, and allowing for better visibility and easy access to your data.

A truly scalable, enterprise iPaaS product can drive high-performance processes and customer facing services 24x7x365—but backend processes must be integrated with “front office” functionality to provide a unified user experience. Digital Dubai, the Dubai government office charged with facilitating the city’s smart transformation, saw this opportunity to improve user experience.

Dubai had dozens of independent apps, offering residents and visitors a wide array of services at the touch of a screen. In a strategic partnership with Software AG, Digital Dubai built a unified integration backbone for its various government entities with API, BPMS and automation support layers, and began enhancing services on streamlined mobile apps, self-service kiosks and more. This replaced in-person visits for things such as acquiring a new business license, as the iPaaS automated relevant processes on the backend, giving smooth journeys for users on the other side.

Business benefits of webMethods.io

• API-led integration 
  The key to mastering integration? Being able to rapidly deploy in a frequent, predictable and reliable manner. Swiftly turn integrations into APIs, or create APIs first and build the integrations later, all with total end-to-end visibility. This helps you to securely manage and expose APIs for use in web, mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) applications—the foundation for creating new business models.
  
  
• Embedded headless integration
  Our embedded headless integration offers easy “under the covers” integration for any size company or IT application. Deliver integrations without changing the user interface or experience for their end users.
  
  
• Pay-as-you-go transaction-based pricing
  With a pay-as-you-go transaction-based pricing, you’ll get full flexibility to run integrations across a hybrid landscape without restrictions. This offers low-cost entry and a scaling model that they can predict easily.
  
  
• Cloud agnostic hybrid platform
  Multi-cloud orchestrations give customers the freedom to be cloud agnostic. Gain the ability to run your integrations in multi-cloud orchestrations, or biplane architecture with a control plane and our individual runtime data planes, which can be deployed in a distributed hybrid architecture.
  
  
• UX tailored to each audience
  webMethods.io is for everyone: business technologists, ad hoc integrators, citizen integrators, administrators and integration specialists. Our multi-persona user experience brings together everyone on a single platform with their own unique development experience.
  
  
• Self-service B2B partner onboarding
  As an add-on to webMethods.io B2B, the app supports self-service onboarding, which is very important while onboarding many partners. B2B administrators can also manually enter partner onboarding information via the app, including partner user and certificate info.
  
  
• End-to-end hybrid monitoring
  Gain a full view of a business transaction going across the iPaaS landscape, including transactions that originate and traverse into any of API, B2B and integration cloud offerings as well as to a self-hosted hybrid integration landscape.