Predictions and Guidelines for Application Integration

The article presents predictions for the near‑future of application integration, noting that enterprise spending on integration will surpass current levels as cloud, mobile, social, and information forces drive business‑process innovation while dramatically increasing the number and complexity of applications, devices, cloud services, and data sources to be integrated.

1) Rise of Application Integration

Key measures to address integration challenges include:

Adjust IT budgets to accommodate higher integration costs over the next five years.

Adopt a more agile, distributed, and federated organizational model.

Become familiar with a wide range of integration products and services and expand the technology portfolio to support rapid cloud‑ and mobile‑driven integration projects.

Understand the factors to consider when selecting a fundamental integration approach.

2) Data Integration on Mobile Devices

Mobile integration is expected to account for about 20% of integration spend. Mobile apps need to access functions and data that were previously only available on traditional computers, facing challenges such as intermittent network connectivity and variable throughput. Recommendations include:

Allocate resources to support inevitable mobile device and app requirements.

Invest specifically in new mobile integration skills and technologies, which differ from existing capabilities.

3) Integration Beyond Enterprise Firewalls

More than two‑thirds of new integration flows will extend outside corporate firewalls, driven largely by B2B integration. Organizations are expanding or replacing legacy EDI translation technologies while adding more complex and collaborative processes. Suggested actions are:

Consolidate the number of products used for both internal (A2A) and external (firewall‑beyond) integration.

Establish a platform that connects integration products with external endpoints, or at least combine two best‑of‑breed products to cover both needs.

Ensure the platform includes necessary endpoint security and governance capabilities.

Application Integration Platform

Application infrastructure (middleware) enables execution and integration of business applications across on‑premises and cloud environments. With Platform‑as‑a‑Service, companies can deploy applications in the cloud and integrate them with internal systems, supporting initiatives such as application modernization, real‑time enterprise, seamless processing, improved vendor/customer integration, activity monitoring, and data‑quality enhancement.

Key steps for building an integration platform include:

Strategic Planning: Draft a charter, align the project with business goals, define scope, set resources, budget, governance, and architecture standards.

Solution Selection: Define requirements, issue RFPs, analyze market intelligence, evaluate vendors, choose technologies, and negotiate SLAs and contracts.

Build: Design technical implementation, develop workflows, forms, and UI, manage risks, define governance structures, and staff the Integration Capability Center to track success metrics.

Application Integration Guide

Because forces such as cloud, mobile, information, and social are interlinking, most organizations face increasingly complex application portfolios and are deploying more applications, many of which run on mobile devices or in the cloud for external business partners.

Before launching any integration project, follow this guide:

Identify what to integrate: Applications, cloud services, data, processes, and trading partners.

Define project scope: Determine whether the integration is A2A (within the enterprise), B2B or cloud‑to‑on‑premise, or cloud‑to‑cloud.

Choose deployment model: Commercial off‑the‑shelf software (COTS), open‑source software (OSS), appliances, cloud‑based services, or integration brokers (IB).

Decide when to federate: Enable interoperability and information sharing when building applications that use external services or when multiple Integration Capability Centers need to be linked.

Align integration with SOA, BPM, and cloud initiatives: Ensure that integration efforts add value to existing enterprise architecture programs.

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