Integration as a Service

“Integration As a Service” stems from the slow evolution of the B2B Integration market. In 80s, Value Added Networks, provide with EDI services. A second wave of B2B providers elaborated marketplaces mainly to serve specific industries. Finally a generation of pure players is currently emerging thanks to the adoption of Service Oriented Architecture. In today’s world, these various actors are coexisting and start to shape dedicated offerings for “Integration as a service”.

The origin of the terminology "Integration as a Service" is not clearly defined. However "IaaS" is becoming widely used in reference to Software as a Service.

Key Characteristics

Integration as a Service shares the layered characteristics of a Software as a Service model –

- Transport and Messaging: reliance on sophisticated protocols for ensuring synchronous/asynchronous communication with guarantee delivery and advanced security features.

- Transformation: Data mappers are executing the bulk of integration e.g. EDI to XML. Numerous transformations are also needed between the various so-called XML standards.

- Consistency & Compliance: The validity of data is becoming more and more crucial given the growth of integration transactions. Basic services include redundancy or technical compliance. More sophisticated services are proposing functional compliance to EU or US rules.

- BPM, BAM & Workflows: Some vendors enable the orchestration of multiple integration projects as well as more sophisticated monitoring features.

- Value Added Services: Marketplaces are proposing dedicated functions for specific industries or processes like Supply Chain, Invoicing.

Implementation

Although most SaaS features are delivered in a web browser, the implementation of Integration as a Service requires direct integration application. The implementation is very similar to any integration project with strategic choices on transport (synchronous/asynchronous), file format (flat file/xml). The additional difficulty might reside more in the integration project for the implementation, if it requires some custom development.

Revenue models for Integration as a Service need also some special attention. They are usually based on recurrent per user or even transaction fees. In general, a subscription fee is also required for ensuring basic maintenance. The Integration as a Service is in general lower than perpetual software license fees. Most of the schemes are currently targeting SMB or non-Critical Integration projects.

See also

• Application service provider
• Everything as a service
• SaaS platform
• Saas Integration
• Secure Virtual Office
• Software plus services
• Supply chain