Integration architecture ensures quality and efficiency

Combining new and old solutions and systems to best serve business processes demands the right technologies in the right places. Agile and swift development, support, and maintenance processes and methodologies have a key role in the modern system landscape where the system landscape consists of old legacy and new systems-as-a-service.

Why invest in an Integration Architecture?

The number of different systems is growing rapidly, especially now that cloud services can be easily purchased and taken into use. At the same time, the data center is buzzing with legacy systems. Typically there are lots of master systems of different ages depending on the size of the organization. In the promised time of micro-services, it is often easy to think that this central integration is not needed - but there is a big mistake in it. Decentralized control causes monitoring to be impossible - it's no exaggeration to say that the cost of maintenance is consequently increasing enormously as enterprises tend to forget the burden of operating systems after they are developed. Often the DevOps teams tend to transform in 90% Ops teams as the monitoring of processes and systems grows out of hands.

Modern architecture and integration tools allow centralized control and decentralized management. And the endlessly scalable microservice doesn't do much to console if the backend isn't scaled behind it. Modern cloud services have good interfaces and it is very tempting to connect systems directly to each other. This results in an integration spaghetti, where making the change is expensive and prone to error. For this reason, integration architecture design is now more important than ever.

Investment in integration architecture pays itself back with effective implementation and smooth maintenance.

Our integration architecture services are always fitted to customers' needs. The Content and extent of the service depend on the needed solution.

Examples of our architecture services

• Evaluation of the current situation aka. architecture mapping
• Existing integrations and systems
• The maturity level of the integrations
• Practices in integration development
• Recommendations of things kept and further developed (TIME-frame of reference)
• Overall design on integration architecture
• Integration architecture as part of your overall architecture
• Strategic technology selections
• Miniservices or microservices?
• Need for Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
• Event-driven architecture with scheduled integration processes
• Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as a part of whole Process Automation
• Digital Integration Hub as the enabler of digitalization with legacy systems and their bottlenecks
• Mapping of information flow types
• Description of data models
• Process descriptions
• Integration map (information flows and their interfaces)
• Information security (e.g. API authorization)
• Performance, scaling, and container deployment
• Integration road map and categorization of integration needs
• Tools of integration development and best practices (Integration Handbook)
• Planning of surveillance and error management

Integration needs assessment and Integration guide

As a result of the integration architecture work, you will get a comprehensive architectural plan with the above-mentioned issues. However, if your needs are smaller and the above list seems too cumbersome to implement - refer to the lighter integration needs mapping and the on-site integration manual to ensure the consistency and quality of your practices, etc.