The Innovator’s

Guide to Agile IT
Architecture
 “ The key to connecting apps in today’s fast changing environment is
to leverage APIs and commercial tools as much as possible so developers don’t

need to build everything from scratch. Rather than spending time learning APIs,

developers can focus on innovation. Business teams are already using SaaS

solutions hosted in the cloud. Now developers can leverage commercial

solutions to create connections between them that were prohibitive before.”

-Nikhil Hajisa, CEO of Azuqua

At the heart of it, technology moves towards
greater connectivity. For systems and applications
that don’t connect the way we need them to, an
integration platform is the solution. Whether it is a
Scope
legacy database or a hundred disparate SaaS
applications, an integration platform solves the
modern connectivity problem.
Speed

Integration platforms as a service (iPaaS)

create connections between applications,
databases, services, and systems, and they do it
Ecosystem
quickly. Instead of direct coupling of software
endpoints, integration platforms easily connect
systems with enterprise-level reliability and no Democra.za.on of
need to individually build each connection.
Work
Depending on your organization, the
reasons for adopting iPaaS will be different. In
general, however, reasons for adopting
integration platforms fall into four main
categories, depending on your number of
systems and your business case.
Scope
By dint of technological innovation,
there are lots of things for an enterprise
to cobble together: microservices, IoT
devices, business SaaS applications,
databases (legacy or not), and different
devices. These systems might operate on
different business logic and were not
built to work together.
Multi-system integration scenarios like
these are best with an integration
platform. An iPaaS works as a one-time
connection to the platform which then
simplifies each subsequent integration.
The right integration platform will come
pre-configured with many commonly
used business applications. Indeed, many
companies buy iPaaS solely for the
connectivity between SaaS applications.
The legacy approach of direct, explicit
couplings of these disparate touchpoints
is simply too complicated. An enterprise
must additionally take a high transaction
load into account. It makes a lot more
sense to use an integration platform that
can reliably handle the scale while
traversing the disparate logic behind
each touchpoint.
Speed
Is your process for building integrations
scalable for completing a dozen software
integrations? Building an integration
between applications involves scoping,
building, and testing. How long will it
take you to build this and can your
stakeholders wait that long?
Time spent building integrations is
money lost. Luckily, the proverbial wheel
has already been invented. Since the
touchpoints in an integration platform
are pre-connected, you can connect
applications at speed instead of building
the connections from scratch.
Connections to APIs have allowed
modern iPaaS to achieve repeatability in
connections, and affords extra features
such as on-demand data flow, scheduled
syncs, or integration with microservices.
An important byproduct of speed is the
added agility. Instead of committing
yourself into a particular software
because of the heavy integrations
surrounding it, an integration platform
lets you switch programs in and out with
little cost. Adopt (and even test) best in
class technology without fear of future
logistics.
Ecosystem
When you are pursuing an API strategy
for internal databases or applications,
consider the ecosystem that they would
be connecting to. After you open up your
app with an API, what’s next? Without
the right ecosystem, you may find
yourself further from meaningful
connections than you thought you would
be.

An integration platform provides a pre-

built library of valuable SaaS or systems
for your application to connect to. If your
lines of business are using project
management, sales, marketing, or
customer service software, then it would
be most beneficial to choose an
integration platform with connections to
those applications.

Prebuilt connectors in a platform

instantly open up possibilities and use
cases that otherwise would take months
to forge with one-to-one connections.
Furthermore, a platform can set up
workflows between 3 or more
applications with ease, which a legacy
approach simply cannot do.
Democra(za(on of
Work
An integration platform can not only
provide connections, but eliminate
reliance on integration specialists, and
reshift the focus to the end user.
The most usable platforms will allow
end-users to build connections with
drag-and-drop ease. You can call it
crowdsourcing for systems integration.
Others see it as citizen empowerment.
People in IT might see it as reducing their
backlog. Either way you slice it, the right
integration platform has the opportunity
to enable more people to do the heavy
work. Connections get built by the
people who need them, instead of
bottlenecking at the doorsteps of
developers.
Conclusion &
Innova(on
If you have plans to link multiple lines of
business, it’s time to rethink your
integration approach. An integration
platform provides the framework to
export, duplicate, and synchronize
information across systems in the
fraction of the time as a legacy approach.
With such an important initiative, take
the opportunity to evaluate new
integration platforms and decide which is
best for you.

But if integration platforms give power

to the end user, they give the final say to
IT. The things that matter for security
compliance, like permissions, access, and
data paths are rightfully put under IT’s
control, making it a win-win for all parties
involved.