Tuesday, 21 May 2013

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Integration As A Service Explained

By Peggie K. Lambert


As a relative newcomer, Integration as a Service is perhaps not as well known as other "services" on the cloud which are fast replacing in-house IT setups. While the rest are used for facilitating the use of specific applications, IaaS allows companies to integrate all their data and applications. This includes everything on clouds and applications being accessed through SaaS providers, in addition to the company's on-site data.

The benefits include everything that usually comes with a migration to the cloud. It eliminates the IT resources and manpower required to achieve integration in-house. It also removes the cost of building up sufficient redundancy to enable scaling to match business and data growth. The company can reduce or expand their use of the available resources on the IaaS as and when required.

The concept of IaaS was developed and is so much in demand because of a natural state of progression among companies that are now looking beyond the basic advantages of the cloud, and want to clean up the mess created by their ongoing shift towards cloud-based applications. Many are saddled with data silos that cannot communicate with other systems in use by the company. Critical data is still locked up on-site, while various applications are being accessed through different cloud providers.

It's a big enough ask for companies to track all this and roll with the changes while still keeping their IT systems operational. It would be just too much to add the burden of integrating all of it, considering the expertise and resources required for such a critical operation. Not many medium to small scale companies will find it feasible or even possible to do this in-house.

Besides, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, it's faster and cheaper to sign up with an IaaS provider who can immediately offer a professional and shiny new "wheel." It becomes the provider's job to integrate the company's various systems. This means the provider is not only offering a wheel for free, but is also taking the responsibility of fixing it to the car and getting things rolling.

The provider takes responsibility for upgrades and maintenance. They ensure login protocols, encryption measures and security are maintained as data moves through the tool. The provider also handles the actual process of integrating the company's applications and data.

Integration as a Service has additional data-related benefits too. For instance, the need for duplicating data entries across systems previously isolated from each other is eliminated. Data accuracy improves since there is no human element involved to cause errors or delays in moving or copying data across systems. Another major advantage is the lack of time and location-specific limitations on access to data, which in turn improves productivity of users.




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