Cloud integration is becoming a business imperative

Creating a single view of infrastructure provides the connective digital tissue businesses need to innovate and create.

Johannesburg, 07 Apr 2020

Cloud integration is a critical link that will ensure the automation of digital business. Increasingly known as IPaaS (integrated platform as a service), when appropriately executed, it supports an organisation's desire to build heterogeneous infrastructure environments and connect disparate environments for a single cohesive experience.

According to global research organisation Orbis Research, the Global Cloud Integration Software Market is expected to register a CAGR of 12% during the forecast period (2020- 2025). The researcher further highlights that successful cloud integration enables companies to avoid creating new silos of information in cloud applications and ensures that a company can attain the highest levels of security when connecting clouds.

“Cloud computing is already an integral part, or component, of just about all IT infrastructures, but the integration of cloud applications and information assets across cloud remains a stumbling block for business,” states Clinton Scott, managing director at TechSoft International. “Cloud integration, or IPaaS, has to form a part of a cloud migration strategy or organisations simply won’t get a cohesive view of all of their infrastructure assets and the information they own.”

The cornerstone of effective cloud integration is the use of APIs across platforms, to integrate applications and data. Using TIBCO Cloud Integration, Scott says TechSoft is now able to help clients connect assets no matter where they reside. Critically, the platform supports an API-led approach, which is its key differentiator as it simplifies integration and doesn’t require data or applications to be stored in a single environment.

Further, by taking an API-led approach to cloud integration, a business can connect hundreds of connectors to endpoints and applications. Now, business analysts and application owners can connect to a wide variety of SaaS applications, databases and business applications such as your ERP, automation systems and CRM solutions, to name a few.

"With TIBCO Cloud Integration, the entire process becomes drag and drop. It allows an application owner to literally wire applications and data together using business logic. Your entire infrastructure can then be viewed and managed as a single entity – which is the ultimate goal for all IT departments – it creates a connective tissue for digital business," adds Scott.

However, he warns that not all integration tools are created equal, and many only enable a single process in the broader infrastructure environment. Another key benefit to the fact that TIBCO Cloud Integration leads with APIs is that it allows for integrators to deploy visual integration patterns and embeds DevOps capabilities throughout the process. With the addition of a tool such as the open source Project Flogo software, developers can also integrate real-time events from IOT devices.

Today, TIBCO Cloud Integration supports hundreds of connectors for applications and technologies, including CRM, ERP, marketing and e-commerce systems, databases, text files and standards like REST, OData, and XML.

“Cloud connectivity and integrations are not merely creating a management pane where you can monitor consumption. IPaaS is turning connection into opportunity, by bringing all of the moving parts of your infrastructure into a single process. This then lets you automate decision-making, adapt faster to changes in your business, and genuinely use data to inspire innovation and lead business activities.

“When you can combine technology services, including applications, datasets and edge devices with a standard interface, your IT infrastructure becomes a very tangible thing, no matter if your systems are made up of a combination of multiple cloud environments and on-premises data centres. It is the game-changer that the cloud promised to be,” ends Scott.

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TechSoft

TechSoft International, backed by TIBCO a global leader in enterprise data, works with customers to empower them to connect, unify, and confidently predict business outcomes. Leveraging TIBCO solutions, TechSoft is helping customers solve complex data-driven challenges and fuels digital business by enabling better decisions and faster and smarter actions. From APIs and systems, to devices and people, we interconnect everything, capture data in real time wherever it is, and augment the intelligence of your business through analytical insights. A Level 1 Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) company, and the exclusive territory partner of TIBCO in Sub-Saharan Africa, we invest in the nurturing and growth of local digital skills and competencies. Today we help hundreds of customers throughout Africa to build compelling experiences, energise operations, and propel innovation.

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