As cloud migration and digital transformation are becoming popular across industries, the need for a middleware integration solution is necessary for organizations to enable connectivity throughout an enterprise (on premise or cloud) to run efficiently.
What is Middleware?
Middleware is a reliable solution that provides all the connections you need to transport your data and build new cloud-centric architecture. It serves as the backbone for all of your integration efforts and ultimately drives your business forward.
It becomes a layer between two systems, which makes it easy by making seamless connectivity possible. It manages integration efficiently in a highly distributed environment where businesses must connect with legacy systems, cloud and SaaS applications, and business management software.
While understanding what middleware is and the benefits it brings to your enterprise is crucial, it’s just as vital to recognize why having a middleware integration strategy is essential.
Why do you Need a Middleware Integration ?
Either an expensive middleware product or cost-effective open-source middleware tools, to achieve success through the middleware, higher maturity, or better ROI, a middleware integration strategy is essential.
Greyhound Research revealed that 48% of organizations confirm that they are not using middleware due to a lack of a sound enterprise integration strategy. But, with the right strategy and the right middleware platform, you can achieve your integration goals and maximize your ROI.
Build your Middleware Integration Strategy
Analyze your business needs
For middleware integration, you must analyze your business before developing a data model that meets your current and near-term business needs. This is the primary requirement that acts as the foundation for your integration journey since analyzing your business needs simplifies integration. Software and applications change drastically in this cloud era, and to adapt to fast-changing markets, organizations need to promptly and efficiently transform IT operations. Applications, platforms, and technologies increase and change daily, providing dozens of point-to-point integrations for us to maintain. If you want your business to be future-proof, you need to have a strategy that covers existing and new business needs.
Adopt a hub-and-spoke integration model
In the hub-and-spoke architecture, each application connects to a central middleware platform, using a standard data object across connections. This makes migrating from one application to another easier with a single endpoint rather than countless point-to-point integrations. This integration model empowers you to easily change business logic as needed without requiring dozens of integrations to support new business rules. This design ensures that future changes and optimizations become fast and easy, increasing the overall agility of the business.
Optimize business processes
Moving to a modern, cloud-native integration platform like integration platform as a service (iPaaS), you can accelerate and streamline processes. In a successful middleware migration, you are not just changing integration endpoints but re-engineering business processes for efficiency and agility. You should seize business opportunities and drive more value with the right middleware platform.
Choose a platform that supports EDI
By adopting an integration platform that also supports EDI transactions, you can reduce the number of systems and skillsets needed to maintain. It gives the advantage of a single unified platform for EDI transactions and data integrations and provides a 360-degree view of the entire business process from end-to-end.
Choose the Right Middleware Platform and Strategy
Though middleware integration has a lot of benefits for your enterprise integration, reaping the best out of your integration investment relies on how effectively you implement it. When something does not work as it should be, it is a nightmare.
To ensure a smooth middleware integration, it’s crucial to select the right platform that aligns with your specific integration needs. This choice, coupled with a well-defined strategy, can help you leverage the full potential of middleware to achieve your integration goals.
However, with the emergence of cloud and rapidly changing technology, creating a right integration strategy for your business could be complex and time-consuming. If you are someone who wants to know more about middleware integration or choose the right middleware integration strategy, you can reach out to us.
We are a certified integration service provider specializing in enterprise-grade integration solutions. We have delivered to many clients from different industries with complex yet cost-effective integration solutions for cloud and on-premise applications. With our expertise and integration experience, we can help you find the right middleware platform and create a strategy that fits your business.
