This blogpost is highlighting the typically required elements you have to consider when planning for a new or enhanced Enterprise Integration Strategy. It is not only which platform you choose (which technology components), but several other aspects which are listed below:
- Integration Principles
- Technology Stack
- Demand Management
- Platform Governance
- Governance by Tech Component
- Operations by Tech Component
- Organization
1. Integration Principles
Probably the most important part of the strategy: Which principles do you apply to integrations, and how you want to build (new) integrations in general, considering the following options:
- API-led connectivity
- Event-driven architectures
- Microservice architectures
- Canonical data models
- Domain driven design
- Data mesh
In general, nobody will deny that loose coupling is a key concept which is universal to all landscapes and thus the following principles are good practices:
- Avoid Point-to-Point integration (use an API gateway at least)
- Async over Sync
- Push over Pull
- Realtime (event-driven) over Batch
- Avoid File-based integration (if possible, especially flat files)
- Standardize and Reuse where possible
2. Technology Stack
Which integration layer components are we going to use (hint: do not use all of them – many have a strong overlap) which defines your companies Integration Platform. The following components are recommended (ideally covered by 1 or 2 software solutions):
- Orchestration Layer (f.k.a. ESB)
- Message Broker (PubSub, Queueing)
- API Management (Gateway and Portal)
- Data Integration (ETL, Data Fabric)
- RPA – Robotic Process Automation
- MFT – Managed File Transfer
If you do not apply a (public) cloud only strategy, you might have to consider private cloud/onPrem technologies.
3. Demand Management
This area will answer the question: “When to use what” and you should have a decision tree/matrix or use a more sophisticated tool like the SAP Integration Assessment.
It can be very Tech-Domain-driven, e.g. “traffic with SAP systems must be routed via SAP Integration Suite”, but this is not necessarily required as many integration solutions interact well with SAP systems. A decision criteria can also be the cost of operations or network zones.
The use of Integration Patterns is also very helpful to define blueprint for specific integration requirements.
4. Platform Governance
Ensuring a high quality of your integrations and the enforcement of Integration Principles (1) is the goal of platform governance. It can be a meeting with Integration Architects to review new developments or a workflow process with a 4-eyes release management.
However, the enforcement of a proper requirements and technical documentation should be part of this step.
5. Governance by Tech Component
Each integration component of your integration platform (2) requires quality-assuring steps during the development until go-live to enforce specific activities like:
- Change & Transport Management
- Test Management
- Quality Gates (e.g. to ensure Naming, Security requirements)
6. Operations by Tech Component
When it comes to the runtime, you need to define a monitoring strategy, e.g.
- how to identify errors
- how to find a specific message
- how to archive messages
- how to log specific steps of cross-application processes
- how to detect slow integrations
7. Organization
Depending on your integration team size, you have to choose an operating model for your enterprise integration delivery as well as for all processes behind. Here are some important questions:
- Is the delivery centralized or decentralized?
- Are you managing an Integration CoE/C4E and/or do you allow the projects to deliver integration content onto your platform?
- How much to you outsource and how do you manage external staff?
- Are there citizen integrators onboarded and consuming parts of the platform? The more specific each integration component is, the higher is the probability that not only experts can use the platform.
Looking at the big vendor strategies, integration strategy can mean this (my simplified versions):
- Use SAP Integration Suite
- Use ISA-M, establish an Integration Center of Excellence (CoE) and enforce governance and quality assurance
- Use LeanIX
- Apply the following Clean Core principles:
- use Standard APIs
- avoid RFC & IDoc
- use Standard Eventy
- use AIF and Cloud ALM for monitoring & error resolution
- Use Azure Integration Services
- Follow guidelines for designing integration architectures
- Use Anypoint
- Apply API-led connectivity
- Establish an Integration Center for Enablement (C4E)
Please get in touch with us if you want to dive deeper into this topic with us, also check out our WIE framework. A good starting point to access the topic is an analysis where you are with your organization through our Integration Maturity Assessment.
