Why Enterprise Integration Software is Important

To understand why enterprise integration software is important to enterprise technology infrastructure, it’s important to consider that communication between enterprise systems is becoming more complex. It used to be that communication between systems was relatively easy; information might be transmitted from a database to a mainframe once a day, for example. Now, with increasing numbers of databases, cloud applications, and endpoints, and consumers that demand information in real time, there are more and more enterprise systems that have to exchange information constantly throughout the day and night.

As these computer systems are now interacting with one another with increasing complexity, not only are they sending and processing messages, data, and requests, but they are also saving all the information as well. This means that companies now have a treasure trove of data to understand their customers, purchasing patterns, employee interactions — essentially every move they make — better than ever before. So how can developers, business analysts, CEOs or anyone in the business who needs it all access the data they need to do their jobs better?? They need an enterprise integration software.

By definition, enterprise integration software is the field of enterprise (large company/business) software architecture that focuses on system interconnection, electronic data interchange, product data exchange, and distributed computing environments. The code that allows two systems to talk to one another is a connection, and as a company grows these connections multiply. Connections are often reusable between different groups and departments internal to the company, but many times, there is no way to advertise that the existing connection exists or share the documentation that enables the connection to operate. This leads to companies building messy point-to-point connections, making integration exponentially harder.

Enterprise integration software make integration less complex because they house all integration assets in a universally consumable manner. Softwares make upgrades easy and quick, have support systems, and make systems communicate seamlessly. Most importantly, enterprise integration software surface all the connections, both singular and redundant, into a cohesive layout or IDE (integrated development environment) and clean up the point-to-point disorganization by way of APIs.

An API is an application programming interface, or a fragment of a code that provides functionality or information. To understand what an API is, think about driving a car. If the steering wheel rotates right, the car will turn right, and that is all that the driver needs to know in order to drive from point A to point B. She doesn’t need to know the underlying motor complexities in order to turn the car right. An API is like the car’s steering wheel: it is the only point of communication between the driver (programmer) and engine and hides the code complexities that make the act of turning the car feasible.

APIs talk to the connections between computer systems and access information, without disrupting the actual connection. So with the use of an enterprise integration software, connector consolidation through APIs creates secure point-to-point communication portals; and APIs allow developers to access information responsibly without altering the connection.

General best practice indicates that internal groups and departments should create reusable, universal APIs. With these APIs, the ability to demand information is simplified, the maintenance of the code is simplified, and the database can handle the information flow more easily. APIs can be documented easily as well, and with the help of dev teams, API platforms can be created as a hub to manage APIs, people, and information flow.

Having reusable APIs also saves time and work when completing enterprise integration projects; instead of spinning up new code every time the business wants an application to connect to a web app, a mobile app, a smartwatch app, etc., developers can leverage the enterprise integration software that houses the APIs and connections, to see what was used before to get more of these systems connected faster.

Enterprise integration is a facet of software enterprise architecture that focuses on connectivity. System interconnection, electronic data interchange, product data exchange and distributed computing environments are some of the many layers within enterprise architecture that normally need to communicate with each other to procure the best user experience. Enterprise integration software, like MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform, make this possible. With an enterprise integration software, these functionalities coexist in a way that provides real value to the business, feeding information and data between systems and sending one cohesive informative output to the user. It’s up to the user to decipher the information but EIPs bridge the information gap more easily than ever before.

Anypoint Platform is a unified, hybrid enterprise integration software that can be deployed anywhere — on premises or in the cloud — and can connect anything to any endpoint. It makes reuse and discovery of APIs easy and provides the future-proof connectivity that businesses need in this rapidly evolving technological landscape. It’s trusted by over 1600 enterprise customers like Splunk, Spotify, and McDonald’s.

Give Anypoint Platform a try today.