SaaS Integration: Vocus

As a provider of on-demand software for managing and implementing public relations, marketing and corporate communication strategies, Vocus enables enterprise users to take full advantage of the social web. Over 40,000 organizations worldwide use Vocus software products to reach and connect with consumers, establish and maintain a strong web presence, and to optimize their outbound and inbound marketing strategies.

Vocus offers two different Software as a Service (SaaS) products. The Marketing Suite features social media monitoring and management for sites like Facebook and Twitter and publicity alerts to connect with journalists and reporters, allowing users to follow emerging conversations and generate relevant buzz. The Marketing Suite also includes tools for creating dynamic online news releases that combine text and visuals as well as Facebook apps for creating custom pages and attracting new fans. Finally, marketing professionals can leverage the product suite’s analytics tools to track progress and results.

In addition to the Marketing Suite, Vocus offers a Public Relations Suite. Among its features, the Public Relations Suite comes with a media database that provides contact information and profiles for more than 400,000 journalists and bloggers. The Public Relations Suite also includes tools for automating press release distributions, news and social media monitoring of news sources, blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter conversations, and PR analytics for tracking, measuring, and reporting results.

SaaS Integration Challenges

While SaaS solutions like those offered by Vocus provide several advantages over traditional enterprise applications, they also lead to new integration challenges. The deployment of multiple SaaS solutions and the increasing shift toward hybrid architectures means that enterprises are putting more of their data in the cloud. This leads to the scattering of data into disparate cloud silos, which undermine overall business efficiency.

To eliminate cloud silos, enterprises need to integrate across cloud computing services and enterprise systems. The increasing prevalence of creating new applications through the use of existing web services, moreover, requires seamless cloud integration. There are a variety of integration use cases for Vocus SaaS products. Current and prospective users alike might consider the following scenarios:

• Integration with other SaaS offerings such as Ultimate Software integration or NetSuite integration
• Integration with on-premise legacy systems
• Integration with desktop applications for end-to-end automation

Integration: The Custom Code Approach

While cloud integration has become a high priority for many organizations, relatively few packaged solutions have emerged. Some enterprises have instead taken a custom approach to integration, relying on in-house developers (and often systems integration consultants) to write code and build custom connectors.

Such an approach has several advantages. It is relatively quick and allows enterprises to tailor their integrations to specific business needs. Nonetheless, a custom approach to integration also has a number of disadvantages.

• Time and Cost: Custom connectors are relatively quick and easy to build when you only need to integrate 2 or 3 systems. When your architecture grows and you add new SaaS applications, integration projects become much more difficult very quickly. In-house developers are left with little time to work on other projects and costs increase when working with consultants.
• Ongoing Maintenance: Once a custom integration is in place, companies devote further resources to ongoing maintenance. Bugs and errors need to be fixed and integration flows need to be monitored for performance issues. This requires further attention from in-house developers and system administrators to perform upgrades, troubleshoot problems, and test and deploy solutions.
• Flexibility: Custom connectors typically create tight dependencies between systems, creating an integration architecture that is rigid and hard to change. For instance, if you change one system, you will also need to modify all the other systems that are connected to it to ensure compatibility. Such an integration architecture is less agile when it comes to adapting quickly to changing business needs.

iON: Integration for the Cloud Era

In light of the need for effective packaged solutions, Mule iON, an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), delivers cloud integration on demand. Mule iON allows users to quickly and easily integrate SaaS and legacy applications without the difficulties and burdens of custom coding.

iON includes a robust set of features, such as:

• Cloud Connectors: Mule iON comes with a rich a library of connectors that quickly integrate the most popular SaaS applications, including Salesforce.com, NetSuite and more. Cloud connectors are easy to use; even non-technical users can quickly integrate SaaS applications without writing custom code.
• Development Toolkit: With Mule iON, users can also build custom connectors using Mule Studio. Mule Studio is an Eclipse-based flow designer that enables users to build their own integration application (iApps) through drag-and-drop configuration. This further reduces the need for custom coding while giving enterprises the flexibility to quickly integrate new SaaS applications.
• Secure Data Gateway: In addition to supporting cloud-to-cloud integration, Mule iON enables users to access data and processes residing behind the firewall in on-premise legacy systems through a secure channel. The Secure Data Gateway makes it possible to integrate with legacy systems without compromising security.
• Management Portal: Maintenance of integrations is easy with Mule iON’s browser-based management portal. The management portal provides visibility into information flows and runtime performance, providing users with actionable information for maintaining and troubleshooting integrations. As a browser-based portal, there is no need to download or install additional software.
• Cloud Essentials: Mule iON includes the defining features of a true cloud service, such as a multi-tenant architecture for security and data isolation, elasticity and scalability, self-service provisioning, and flexible pricing.