What is an iPaaS? Integration Platform as a Service simplified

What if your business applications were more than just standalone tools? With an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), they can be.

An iPaaS is a platform that enables businesses to connect applications, data, and processes. By leveraging an iPaaS, you can build an integrated tech stack that effortlessly shares data, eliminates manual data entry tasks, and paves the way for business process automation. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the importance of adopting an iPaaS, how these platforms function, key advantages and features, and more.

Learn what makes Celigo’s iPaaS unique.

Why is an iPaaS important?

In today’s business landscape, efficiency is key, and companies are constantly seeking ways to streamline their operations. However, manual data entry tasks make it difficult to improve efficiency and productivity. 

Typically, the root cause of these tasks is disparate systems. When key systems aren’t integrated with the rest of your tech stack, they can’t sync data, so employees must manually transfer data between systems. This might have been manageable when businesses had eight applications on average in 2015, but now, with tech stacks averaging 130 systems, transferring data has become a never-ending, error prone endeavor. 

By providing your business with the tools to integrate applications and automate data flows, iPaaS solutions allow you to focus on what really matters: strategic growth and innovation. These platforms also help you reduce errors that often come with manual data handling, ensuring that your data is accurate and reliable.

Additionally, iPaaS solutions are scalable. They are designed to connect any application with no limits on the number of integrations or the volume of data processed. This allows businesses to scale their operations as they grow. 

How does an iPaaS work?

iPaaS solutions act as a cloud-based middleware that connects different systems, enabling them to communicate and share data. This is crucial for organizations that use multiple applications, as it ensures that data flows seamlessly between these systems. 

Often, iPaaS solutions offer prebuilt connectors to link common applications, eliminating the need for complex coding. These connectors can integrate cloud-based applications, on-premise applications, databases, and even B2B transactions. With flexible API (application programming interface) connections for a wide range of integration scenarios, iPaaS platforms ensure that as your business grows, you can continue to integrate new applications without limitations.

iPaaS platforms like Celigo provide dashboards with real-time visibility into data flows, allowing users to monitor integrations, track performance, and quickly detect and resolve errors. These dashboards offer real-time monitoring, detailed error insights, and automatic error resolution features. Users can view the status of flows, access a history of flow runs, and receive notifications for specific issues. These platforms also support role-based access, enabling collaboration among team members, while ensuring that the right people can manage and resolve errors without altering integration setups.

Today, many iPaaS solutions incorporate AI and machine learning to assist in integrations. This makes it easier for users to handle large-scale and complex integration tasks. 

iPaaS benefits

Now that you understand how an iPaaS works, let’s dive into the benefits of using these platforms. The benefits of iPaaS are manifold. These platforms enhance operational efficiency by integrating siloed data and automating repetitive tasks. This not only saves time, but also reduces the risk of human error. 

Another significant advantage is improved data integration. iPaaS solutions ensure all your business applications have the same real-time data, enabling better decision-making. Plus, with broad connectivity options across business functions, you can ensure you have a unified and efficient IT ecosystem.

Cost savings are another key benefit. By automating manual tasks and processes, iPaaS platforms lower operational costs. Additionally, iPaaS solutions are more scalable than other integration solutions, allowing you to easily add new applications and processes as your business grows. With the ability to connect to any number of applications and handle any volume of data, iPaaS platforms offer infinite scalability.

Without an iPaaS, IT teams can easily get bogged down with building and managing integrations. By automating data integration and business processes, iPaaS solutions reduce manual intervention and custom coding. This frees up your IT resources to focus on more strategic initiatives. On top of that, IT teams don’t have to spend so much time tracking down errors. With centralized error management, errors are automatically detected, categorized, and resolved, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous data flow. 

Here are a few more benefits you could see with an iPaaS:

• Improved developer productivity 
• Reduced cost of integrations
• Quicker time-to-value than other integration solutions
• Compliance with corporate and regulatory standards for security and privacy
• Enhanced agility to respond to changes in the market

Common features of iPaaS solutions

iPaaS solutions provide a wide range of functionalities. Here are a few common features you can find with most platforms: 

• Guaranteed data delivery: This feature gives iPaaS solutions the ability to hold data until it has safely reached its destination.
• Error handling: Most iPaaS solutions indicate where errors occur in the transfer of data.
• Endpoint connectors: iPaaS solutions typically make it easier to connect with specific applications without needing to code directly via API. This includes connectors for specific applications, as well as for universal communication protocols, such as FTP/SFTP; HTTP/S, OFTP, OFTP2; XML standards; as well as EDI, EDIFACT, SWIFT, and many others.
• Data governance: This capability ensures only users who are granted specific permission to access data.
• Lifecycle management: By providing a centralized console to create, manage, and govern integrations, iPaaS solutions allow users to develop integration flows that automate the exchange of data between disparate applications, siloed data sources, and trading partners.
• Developer tools: Developer tools enable deep customization when building complex integration flows.

The challenge of integration today

Utilizing an iPaaS is more important than ever, as integration becomes more challenging. Today, there are business applications available to address every conceivable challenge a company could encounter. Most of these apps are simple to use, easy to set up, offer beautiful interfaces, and require no training.

Because these apps are so easy to deploy, IT teams are no longer responsible for purchasing and implementing many business systems. Now, individual departments can pick any best-of-breed app they want to tackle their specific tasks. This trend has created an explosion in the number of SaaS apps businesses use, which shows no sign of slowing down.

Other integration solutions

There are several other integration solutions businesses can choose outside of an iPaaS to help them tackle their integration challenges. However, not every solution has the capabilities and scalability required to support growing businesses. 

Explore these common solutions:

Vendor-provided integrations

SaaS applications typically provide point-to-point integrations that allow users to quickly connect with popular applications, such as Salesforce or NetSuite. These vendor-provided integrations address common use cases, and business system administrators can configure them to exchange data between two applications. 

However, vendor-provided integrations have significant drawbacks when it comes to scalability. When scaling this solution, you’ll need technical developers who can work in multiple applications to manage automations and troubleshoot problems. Because of the increased complexity that comes with spanning multiple systems and business processes, this solution is best suited for a limited number of endpoints and flows. 

Coded point-to-point integrations

For businesses with skilled developers, coded point-to-point integrations can be utilized. These integrations require developers to write code to integrate APIs. Because they require technical resources, this approach is common for organizations with large development teams who have the bandwidth to implement, manage, and maintain integrations. 

While coded point-to-point integrations allow developers to meet any custom requirement, problems can arise if you don’t have resources to manage these integrations. Since you’ll need to update your integrations when API changes and errors occur, without proper management, integrations could stop working and need to be rebuilt. 

Workflow automation platforms

Workflow automation platforms help you streamline and automate specific tasks and processes. These tools allow users to create automated workflows by connecting different applications and services. 

Workflow automation platforms work best for routine activities like data entry, email notifications, and task assignments. However, they have limited data integration functionality and often place limits on data volumes, concurrent flows, and API calls. Additionally, these platforms can be difficult to manage at scale. 

The next generation of iPaaS

iPaaS platforms are the best solution for growing companies because they standardize how to monitor, maintain, and update processes across applications. As these processes evolve, iPaaS solutions are ready to grow with you. However, not every iPaaS has the same capabilities.  

The first generation of iPaaS solutions, or traditional iPaaS solutions, were developed in response to the first generation of SaaS applications. This was a time when IT departments mostly owned, managed, and maintained all of a company’s systems, so the iPaaS platforms were developed solely for technical professionals who were trained in them.

But, the rising number of business applications, combined with the transition to business teams procuring and overseeing applications, necessitates a new approach. This new approach to iPaaS must make it easier to build complex integrations across the board, while offloading integration management away from IT to business users. Businesses need low-code and user-friendly iPaaS platforms that allow business users to self-serve. 

The elements of advanced iPaaS

So, what’s different about advanced iPaaS solutions? Today’s users have developed certain expectations of how cloud applications should work, and advanced iPaaS platforms reflect that. This means:

• Platforms are as intuitive as any cloud application.
• Users are guided through the integration process.
• Integrations can be federated across different parts of the organization.
• Integrations are easier to deploy, customize, maintain, and scale.
• Prebuilt connectors incorporate best practices and can be licensed and reused.
• Pricing models accommodate both small and large businesses.

Leveraging prebuilt connectors

Prebuilt connectors significantly reduce the time needed to set up integrations between applications. Instead of developing custom integrations from scratch, businesses can use prebuilt connectors to quickly establish connections between commonly used applications, enabling faster deployment and quicker time-to-value.

Prebuilt connectors eliminate the need for in-depth coding and complex configurations. This makes it easier for non-technical users to set up and manage integrations, reducing reliance on IT teams and allowing business users to take ownership of their integration needs.

These connectors are developed and maintained by the iPaaS provider, ensuring they follow best practices and are optimized for performance. This results in more reliable integrations, with fewer errors and issues compared to custom-built solutions, which might not be as thoroughly tested.

iPaaS providers regularly update their prebuilt connectors to accommodate changes in the connected applications, such as API updates or new features. This ongoing maintenance ensures that integrations remain functional and up-to-date, without requiring manual intervention or custom updates from the user.

Advanced iPaaS as a key component of any automation strategy

Automation is one of the most important tactics to ensure operational success in the age of soaring competition and high customer expectations, and integration is a key component of any automation strategy. Advanced iPaaS platforms are a critical part of a company’s tech stack and should be considered much earlier in a company’s life cycle than they traditionally have been.

With advanced iPaaS solutions, IT users have the robust tools they need to centralize integrations onto a single platform, while significantly reducing the time and resources required to build and maintain these integrations. Additionally, advanced iPaaS solutions provide a user-friendly interface and a low-code environment that allows non-technical users to build, manage, and monitor integrations. Because anyone can manage an integration, they can be handed off to other departments, freeing up IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives.

A well-considered integration strategy supported by a robust advanced iPaaS solution ensures applications are working together, eliminating manual processes and costly errors, and enabling companies to be more adaptable in the ever-changing market.

Automation is the future of business, and the companies that don’t adopt a powerful, holistic application integration strategy will lose out to those who do.

Ready to start integrating your tech stack? Request a demo of Celigo’s advanced iPaaS today.