Integration Basics

What is an integration?

According to wikipedia, Integration is the process of linking together different systems and software applications physically or functionally, to act as a coordinated whole. There are four approaches to integration 

1. Point-to-point also called as app-to app, this approach involves hand-coding integration, and typically takes place within an organization.
2. Middleware whether it's called object management, event management, session management, data translation, middleware create a layer between applications which receives the data, translates it, transmits it. 
3. EAI ( Stands for Enterprise Application Integration) are designed to integrate the companies back office systems with their front-office applications using a single integration layer.
4. iPaaS, designed to integrate across multiple cloud platforms, often involves integration with local on-premises technologies and multiple software as a service solutions(SaaS).

According to Gartner, iPaaS (Integration platform as a service) is a suite of cloud services enabling development, execution and governance of integration flows connecting any combination of on Premises and cloud based processes, services, applications and data within individual or across multiple organizations.

Common Components of iPaaS

Integration platform typically contains a set of functional components, such as 

• Message bus for enabling reliable messaging between enterprise applications.
• Adapters to transform messages from and to application's proprietary protocol. Adapters often offer connectivity via common standards, like FTP, SFTP or format support, like EDI.
• Transformation engine and visualized data mapping to transform messages or files from one format to another.
• Metadata repository for storing information separated from processes, like business party.
• Process Orchestration Engine for orchestration design and execution. In this context orchestration is a technical workflow that represents a business process or part of it.
• Technical dashboard for tracking messages in a message bus and viewing execution history of orchestrations.
• Scheduler for scheduling orchestrations
• Batch engine for controlling large file transfers, batch jobs, execution of external scripts and other non-messaging based tasks.