Application integration is one of the most important capabilities for the would-be modern enterprise. Without it, businesses can never bridge old with new technology and process, and fully utilize disparate systems, services and data. But as with most technology adventures, it is easier said than done.
The introduction of integration platform as a service (IPaaS) environments has, inarguably, been a major advancement enabling organizations to replace manually intensive application integration activities by essentially renting integration services from third parties, namely cloud providers.
Greater affordability and scalability
Over time, however, IPaaS has become expensive, especially with the advent of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings on the public cloud. Providers of public cloud services — the so-called “hyper-scalers” such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and Google — have the theoretical ability to scale infinitely. For organizations seeking to modernize their IT infrastructure, working with hyper-scalers presents a more attractive option by offering greater affordability, greater scalability (both up and down) and agility for the business to respond to changing conditions.
Not surprisingly, many IPaaS customers are looking to move to aforementioned cloud platforms. Making the move is a complicated technical undertaking with few available solutions. The missing piece: A reusable application that includes modern application programming interface (API) capability to help accelerate integration services between logical network endpoints.
Last year, we set out to build a reusable framework that would enable a global provider of business information to more effectively and quickly transition from IPaaS to IaaS.
Move from IPaaS to IaaS
Our customer, based in Europe, is among the world’s largest providers of business credit reports, serving 365 million businesses worldwide. As an information provider, its business depends wholly on integrating data from a vast multitude of sources, so timely and cost-effective application integration is paramount. However, it had a major challenge: Facing an upcoming IPaaS renewal date, it wanted to jettison IPaaS and latch onto IaaS within a six-month window.
We proposed and then utilized a unique approach that required the client to migrate use cases rather than services. We then helped the company move onto AWS, a platform that will deliver much greater operational agility and cost efficiency. This approach, we have found, can help companies across industries move from virtually any IPaaS platform onto the public cloud.