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What is an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) and what are its benefits?
For every conceivable challenge, there’s an app. Regardless of the department or the issue, you can be sure to find an easy-to-deploy, smooth-to-use solution that requires little or no training. Digital transformation is built on software integration. It’s the most effective route to vanquishing those repetitive, manual processes and reducing dependency on spreadsheets, while linking up your systems to increase data visibility, speed and accuracy across your business.
That’s why you need an iPaaS.
So, what is iPaaS?
An Integration Platform as a Service, or iPaaS, standardizes the way that applications are integrated into a business, ensuring successful digital transformation. It’s based in the cloud, and acts as a central hub, allowing companies to connect all the different parts of their business operations together.
Whether it’s software, systems, cloud applications, APIs, data points, or other digital business solutions, your iPaaS platform has it covered. Users can even create integration flows that connect applications in the cloud and on-premise, then deploy them without installing or managing any hardware or middleware.
How does an iPaaS work?
As a central platform for creating, deploying and executing your integration applications, an iPaaS typically consists of a suite of application monitoring tools and connectors. It not only integrates applications, but it also makes sure they are performing correctly, with no errors or communication failures.
The connectors are at the core of an iPaaS integration. These are pre-built pieces of code that create connections and interact with specific apps or data sources. Each connector needs to be designed to communicate in ways that its specific application target will understand, so that an integration app can be created.
When considering an iPaaS, you have to absolutely make sure that it provides the connectors you need to integrate the applications and data types that are incumbent within your business. Beyond the generic connectors, you’ll also find certified third-party connectors built by platform users. These will help you build out an ecosystem, regardless of the complexity of your operations.
The key benefits of iPaaS
Back in the dark days before iPaaS systems were readily available, software integrations involved writing custom code, lots of it, and using a multitude of plugins. This resulted in extensive, expensive integration projects, with very little flexibility.
In stark contrast, iPaaS is a low-code or no-code solution. There are even open source iPaaS options. Deep integrations can be created through a user-friendly interface, with all the heavy lifting done in the background. That means data experts and project managers, rather than software developers, can configure, monitor and manage software integrations from one central dashboard.
With this self-service approach to software integration, you’ll also achieve faster time to market, improve data security and error detection, as well as unlocking data siloes, sharing data and enabling scalability without any loss of data integrity.
All these benefits put your company at an advantage, reducing costs, minimising errors and allowing you to build faster, better, more profitable business strategies.
So, if you’re interested in exploring the potential of iPaaS in more detail, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch, and let’s chat through the opportunity.
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Get our iPaaS guide
If you want to achieve your digital transformation goals faster, and with better results, then you need to think about using an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS). iPaaS integration solutions add elasticity and ease of integration between cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premise systems. But with so many different iPaaS choices available, how do you know where to begin?
That’s where we come in.
In this guide you’ll learn all about some of the leading iPaaS platforms, their capabilities and how your business can benefit from them.