Choosing the Right Cloud Integration Platform
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By WSO2 Team
- 21 Apr, 2022
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Photo by Oliver Roos on Unsplash
Most organizations today deploy their applications to the cloud. These apps must connect to other services and resources in the cloud and to the organization’s IT framework. In this way, cloud-integrated apps support a business’ operational activities and its employees.
Until recently, developers relied on traditional methods to connect data or applications to each other. These methods included a blend of legacy solutions like custom hand-coding and point-to-point tools. Such practices are still relevant in a modern IT framework but are generally more suited to niche applications.
Modern cloud integration platforms have evolved tremendously and succeeded in outshining these traditional methods. Some organizations now build in-house cloud integration platforms. Others have switched to using managed integration platforms. In both cases, the growing demand for cloud integration platforms means that we, as developers, should define a specific criterion to evaluate these platforms. To achieve this, we’ll need to look beyond each platform’s basic features to assess the most appropriate cloud integration platform for businesses.
This article will discuss the challenges organizations face when deciding whether to build their own cloud integration platforms or hire integration services from third-party providers. We’ll then dive in, comparing major iPaaS providers on security, scalability, observability, and ease of integration capabilities.
You’ll first need to decide if you want to migrate your organization to a home-grown solution or a managed platform. Let’s examine the factors that will affect your decision.
As a developer, you will need to decide on a solution that delivers top-tier cloud integration tools and contributes significantly to the organization’s return on investment. Building an in-house integration platform is initially cheaper. However, the cost increases exponentially as the platform matures and requires maintenance and customization. As data formats and communication protocols grow increasingly intricate, the organization will need to train existing staff or hire new members with operational and development skills to manage integrations.
Managed cloud integration models eliminate the considerable expenses associated with in-house development. An organization using a managed platform reduces its hiring and training costs by using the teams of specialists an integration service offers. Additionally, the organization only pays for the share of the service it uses.
It takes time to build and test an integration solution in-house and ensure its interoperability with other solutions on the market. It can already take a considerable time for an organization to build in-house teams for programming, development, and testing without the added work of incorporating complex integration needs.
Of course, an established iPaaS vendor takes less time to execute an integration project. An experienced team is quicker to customize integrations and can deploy on short notice if your organization’s integration needs closely match an existing integration strategy.
Most integration projects are complex, and coded integrations are time-consuming and difficult to maintain. IPaaS solutions provide low-code/no-code capabilities to allow you to integrate with minimal hand-coding. They provide custom coding options to enable developers to build system-specific integrations quickly. Also, as part of speeding up the development of integration, iPaaS providers use built-in connectors. These connectors are readily available to enable easy and faster integration of cloud-based, web-based, and on-premise applications.
More often than we’d like, in-house integrations break down and require fixing. Developers are likely busy with many other tasks and don’t have the time to work exhaustively on fixing an in-house integration. The limited amount of developer availability means that issue resolutions could take weeks.
In a situation like this, an iPaaS is a welcome option. An iPaaS vendor has extensive and well-documented infrastructure and larger dedicated integration teams than most organizations can maintain. This capability enables them to relieve your business from the burden of outages with the maximum possible efficiency. Infrastructural or API changes no longer pose a significant risk, as iPaaS providers monitor and update integrations. Ultimately, an organization saves more time and resources by not maintaining integrations than using dedicated in-house teams.
Integration includes building connections across software as a service (SaaS), on-premises, and across cloud tools and applications. This connectivity necessitates an integration solution that provides data security and complies with industry security standards. It should have features such as those that enable intruder alert reporting, significantly minimizing the risk of security breaches.
If you choose to integrate in-house, you’ll control the organization’s data, which has benefits and drawbacks. Organizations with in-house integration have complete control of establishing and maintaining service level agreements (SLA). You’ll have a reasonable chance to limit risks that may arise due to security breaches or third-party integration downtimes. Still, you will have to rely on your own security and monitoring to achieve this.
Managed cloud integration platforms are especially vigilant in securing their clients’ data. Most iPaaS vendors provide fraud detection, real-time threat analysis, and accessible audit services to keep data safe. They pass along much of this observability to you. Additionally, they provide observability support for troubleshooting and monitoring failures, workflow performance, resource utilization, and latency. This is possible because iPaaS’ have built-in monitoring, observability, and threat detection tools.
Many cloud integration platforms are available today, but in this iPaaS comparison, we’ll focus on the significant players:
Dell Boomi targets upper middle-market and large enterprises. It provides support for master data management (MDM) and solutions for APIs, electronic data interchange (EDI), B2B, Internet of Things (IoT), and on-premises and cloud integration management.
The Boomi cloud integration platform is built on a heterogeneous system, which is essential for achieving fast low-code integration. You can create custom apps using Boomi Flow without writing code.
Most organizations plan to scale operations over time, which calls for an integration solution that scales horizontally and vertically. Dell Boomi is a scalable integration platform to ensure the organization operates optimally. It empowers users for scalability by modifying applications directly.
The Dell Boomi AtomSphere platform secures apps, systems, and databases using a three-tier full-stack security architecture.
The platform also has system and network monitoring capabilities to assess the network’s health status, servers, cloud runtime, and virtual machines.
OIC is an integration platform for cloud-based and on-premises apps. It integrates with Oracle Cloud Platform for Oracle SaaS and other cloud apps. Its extensive infrastructure and connectivity features enable developers to build complex integrations between multiple technologies and systems.
OIC makes it straightforward to scale up or down and integrate in line with cost factors. Companies with variable production loads can use this cloud integration platform to scale up for peak season and scale down during the off-season.
Additionally, OIC provides a secure environment for the tenant isolation and visualization layer, operating system, and physical security. Organizations control user access through runtime and design-time security.
Finally, OIC’s built-in intelligence observability system uses machine learning technology to provide real-time recommendations.
The target market for Jitterbit is upper mid-market organizations that manage integrations of multiple SaaS applications. With this platform, you can manage IoT data, B2B, and application-to-application integrations. You can also create and manage APIs.
Novice integrators can use Jitterbit’s no-code or low-code solutions to integrate easily. The platform provides integration and API management and software development kit (SDK) technologies to build complex integrations. Despite needing to code less, you’ll still find building robust integrations using Jitterbit requires plenty of coding experience.
Jitterbit’s functions expand as you grow your data integration needs. This iPaaS solution scales along with the organization’s data integration operations.
This platform’s security features include data encryption in transit and at rest, attack mitigation, and IP safelisting. Jitterbit encrypts file transfer data through HTTPS, sFTP, FTP, AS2, and VAN.
Jitterbit has an API monitoring feature to detect user accessibility, tampering, and traffic flow anomalies. Additionally, its console monitors system health and resource use.
MuleSoft is an EiPaaS platform that provides enterprise service bus (ESB) and API management capabilities. Its Anypoint Exchange, an online marketplace for APIs and connectors, lets customers upload and share connectors.
This EiPaaS platform provides reusable API assets and offers developers a no-code platform to easily build API event-driven data integrations.
You can scale in MuleSoft by increasing or reducing computing resources such as Mule workers. Scale vertically or horizontally by increasing computing resources or increasing the number of worker instances, respectively.
MuleSoft’s security features apply to SaaS integrations, the service mesh, APIs, microservices, and service-oriented architecture (SOA).
The Mulesoft Anypoint Platform provides monitoring capabilities through Anypoint Monitoring. Additionally, it offers real-time machine learning-driven insights and visibility into APIs and integrations.
Choreo is an internal developer platform designed to accelerate the creation of digital experiences.. API developers rely on this platform for their designing, building, deploying, managing, and observability needs. This tool helps developers overcome the complexities of on-premises and cloud integrations.
Choreo leverages the power of machine learning algorithms to enable users to create and manage APIs efficiently. Integration development in Choreo is artificial intelligence-assisted, significantly improving code quality. Choreo’s AI feature uses historical performance and activities to predict your needs as a developer. In that way, Choreo can provide you with identity abnormalities, data mapping, performance feedback, or even a complete code as you build an API.
Choreo’s ability to scale is unmatched since WSO2 built the platform with scalability in mind. You scale only the necessary components of a microservice architecture when using Choreo — there’s no need to scale the entire application.
Security is a priority for organizations connecting their applications and accessing data through APIs. WSO2 built the Choreo cloud integration platform’s data plane to protect APIs, manage tokens, and define security policies. Choreo provides you with an API gateway and developer portal to enable you to expose APIs securely.
In addition, Choreo uses AI technology to enable development and improve monitoring capabilities. Through advanced alerts and monitoring, its deep observability features help you catch and mitigate security or misconfiguration events earlier. Its built-in observability tools enable developers to troubleshoot APIs and monitor API usage.
You’ll find that many factors influence the choice between building your own cloud integration platform or seeking the services of an iPaaS provider. Before an organization settles on one of these two options, it must consider the associated cost, development time, infrastructure, and security.
Managed cloud integration platforms are more secure, cost less, demand less development time, and have extensive infrastructures and support. Many iPaaS vendors are available beyond those listed in this iPaaS comparison. Their features can be quite varied, so you may try a few options before committing to the best tool for your needs.
Remember to compare platforms on their ease of creating integrations, observability, security, and observability capabilities. Choreo is a great service to start with and can scale all the way to the top, learn more about Choreo today.
