In the past, integration could be neglected within IT development, for a number of reasons including out-of-date tools and a lack of specialized knowledge. But in an era of digitalization, integration is a skill required by every developer and without it, organizations could fall behind their competitors.
The IDC whitepaper: How Modern IPaaS Enables Business Strategy, identifies four shifts that have disrupted the IT industry and placed the need for integration alongside that of digital transformation.
These shifts are:
- Cloud acceleration: The widescale move to cloud applications during the COVID-19 pandemic triggered new integration needs in multi-cloud and hybrid deployment scenarios, forcing organizations to rethink integration approaches.
- Customer expectation shifts: As the world digitalizes, customers demand more and at a faster rate. This puts pressure on developers to deliver from front-end to back-end more quickly, as well as offer a better customer experience.
- APIs: Modern application services and microservices are dependent on APIs, which must be managed and made secure through the help of API management, API gateway software, and API integration.
- Simplification: Through integration, developers can simplify the development process through one suite of tools. This can simplify the interconnected parts of enterprise class systems, the end-to-end process consistency across application and organizational silos.
In 2020, the worldwide integration software market grew 11.7% to $6.5 billion. This spending was spread amongst API management, integration platforms and standalone connectors and adapters, including both legacy and modern integration tools and iPaaS offerings. It is predicted that at this rate, integration and API management will have doubled in speed by 2025, and it’s clear that the rate will not slow down any time soon. Organizations must keep up with these trends to remain competitive, but there are other benefits to adopting an Azure integration solution.
Benefits of Adoption
- Increased Security: Due to their shared resource model, cloud services have traditionally been associated with safety concerns. However, an Azure integration suite contains embedded security that is easy to use and implement.
- Moreover, safety features such as Managed Identity can also help organizations with both speed and security.
- Cost Optimization: Cost optimization is at the heart of what Azure integration services can offer. Microsoft offers a menu of integration services where customers can select the ones they need, in order to save on costs. Codit can help in selecting which ones are right for your scenarios.
- Speed: The integration process can be started very quickly, as opposed to those on-premises. This also includes increased development speed to prototype functionality for customers, which is good for business.
- AI: An Azure integration solution can also make use of AI capabilities, such as machine learning. When data is collected from siloed applications, AI applications can use it to make better predictions, recommendations and decision making. All of this makes for a better experience for the customer and improves back-office speed and efficiency.
- Code simplification: Newer integration services, such as Azure Logic Apps, provide tools with a flexible approach that reduces the complexity of custom code through built-in connectors as often as possible.
- Use of existing skillsets: If you adopt tools that match existing skillsets, the modernization process will go a lot quicker, and developers and architects can focus on where they add value, as opposed to relearning. For example, at Codit we exclusively use Microsoft Azure Integration Services. These Azure Integrations Services give a faster and more agile consumption of resources, increasing speed to market and allowing companies to utilize existing engineering skills, as opposed to retraining.
The competitive edge that Microsoft Azure Integration Services offer an organization is limitless. There can however be some challenges in the implementation, which Codit can help you to overcome.
Potential challenges posed by implementation
- If your organization is used to an on-premises infrastructure, you must be prepared to organize your systems differently on the cloud. This means moving away from a centralized team, and many people must be trained. This can take a longer time to implement in practicality and could mean further costs. Codit can help to smooth the process for you.
- Security and governance tools must be rethought in terms of safe enablement, so as not to limit what modern tools can offer and make it easier for businesses to work with the IT.
- Organizations must complete proof-of-concepts, in order to make the desired outcome clear and to help plan costs and budgets. Codit can help to accelerate this process if they have the knowledge that your organization has gathered over the years available.
- To ensure the planned benefits are achieved, the functional requirements for IT and business development must be reviewed, to ensure that the parts of the evaluation process that are commonly skipped are not. This will ensure not just the immediate but future needs are considered. During the initial project intake, a Codit Business Analyst will work together with you to capture these requirements.
- Companies must also consider how to divide their data storage between cloud and on-premises storage, as consistent governance across locations and environments is crucial.
Conclusion
- As hybrid cloud, multi-cloud and IoT environments are adopted at a higher rate than ever, the need for modern application integration platforms is paramount in an increasingly digitalizing world.
- An Azure integration platform can help businesses to scale up and efficiently, deliver reliability and increase speed to market.
- One of the key benefits of an Azure integration platform over cloud strategy is ease of use, which could enable your organization to spread knowledge across a large team of developers, as opposed to small groups of specialists.
- In the age of digitalization, customer expectations are becoming more complex; whilst they are demanding an increased customer experience, they also expect simplicity, and an Azure integration service, implemented by Codit, can offer this.
- Finally, cloud computing won’t be fully separate from on-premises and edge infrastructure for a long time. With an Azure integration setup, organizations can future-proof their infrastructure whilst ensuring its cost-effectiveness, efficient speed-to-market and security.
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Contact Michel
He's our Data & App Integration Domain Lead