Organizations and enterprises of every size increasingly turn to hybrid ground-to-cloud infrastructures in an attempt to maximize IT system, flexibility, scalability, and capacity. As a result, system complexity skyrockets. SMBs and large enterprises alike can end up struggling with piecemeal infrastructures that include on-premise legacy systems, service-oriented architecture (SOA), software-as-a-service (SaaS), and cloud-based programs. The results are often anything but efficient and cost-effective.
What’s needed is something called an enterprise integration platform (EIP) – a comprehensive framework for integrating on-premises systems, SOA, SaaS, and application programming interfaces (APIs). An enterprise integration platform can dramatically reduce the number of interfaces required for both internal and external business applications, simplifying and streamlining your IT infrastructure. This, in turn, makes it easier to implement, manage, and monitor system and network components end-to-end.
Without a robust enterprise integration platform, business operations can slow down, IT downtime increase, and productivity diminish. However, organizations that utilize the right enterprise integration platform can see a number of benefits, including:
Seamless connectivity
The right integration platform enables organizations to seamlessly connect the wide variety of on-premise and cloud-based systems and dev ices that comprise today’s complex infrastructures. Network traffic is optimized and data flows unimpeded between the enterprise and a mobile workforce.
Improved productivity
Integration between internal teams, customers, and suppliers becomes faster and more reliable with the improved connectivity provided by an EIP. This minimizes errors, reduces business risk, and improves project completion rates and time-to-market for a greater overall competitive advantage.
Improved data utilization
Today’s emphasis on utilizing Big Data throughout the enterprise for a variety of purposes makes the need for an EIP even more critical. Secure, reliable, and scalable data storage and processing is greatly improved when diverse datacenters and cloud-based data warehousing are seamlessly integrated with on-premise systems and made more easily accessible to workers.
Lower operational costs
A streamlined, more efficient IT infrastructure made possible through an enterprise integration platform reduces maintenance costs and minimizes costly downtime and system upgrades. A best-in-class EIP such as Flowgear can even automate implementation and integration so you’re free to choose the best, most cost-effective software solutions for your business without fear of incompatibility.
The ideal enterprise integration platform includes:
- No on-premises infrastructure
- No custom software development
- Simple drag-and-drop workflow design
- Easy browser-based management dashboards
- Secure ground-to-cloud connectivity
- Reliable support for web APIs as well as legacy APIs/interfaces
Business agility today rests on the ability to create transparent, easily monitored and maintained ground/cloud IT environments, made possible with the use of a comprehensive enterprise integration platform.
