Integrations

I’ve found myself doing lots of Integrations work lately, with more on the roadmap. Integrations is a huge, nebulous topic, so this post will be a long one!

• Definitions
• Design Patterns
• Open Source Integration Platforms
• iPaaS Commercial Vendors
• API Integrations
• Webhooks

Definitions

Integration

Automation

Event

App Integration

• integrating real-time data between applications, app <-> app
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_application_integration

API Integration

iPaaS

Embedded iPaaS

Data Integration

• managing large data sets at rest, which happens after data is created. (when process creating data completes)

Data Processes (eg, ETL, ELT)

Data Warehouse

Design Patterns

https://www.enterpriseintegrationpatterns.com/

Observer Pattern

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_pattern
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/observer-pattern-set-1-introduction/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/events/observer-design-pattern

Publish-Subscribe

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish%E2%80%93subscribe_pattern
• https://aws.amazon.com/pub-sub-messaging/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/patterns/publisher-subscriber

Event-Driven Architecture

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event-driven_architecture
• https://aws.amazon.com/event-driven-architecture/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/architecture-styles/event-driven

Enterprise Service Bus

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_service_bus
• https://www.mulesoft.com/resources/esb/what-esb
• https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/esb
• https://www.oracle.com/technical-resources/articles/middleware/soa-ind-soa-esb.html

Message-Oriented Middleware

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleware
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleware_(distributed_applications)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message-oriented_middleware

Push vs Pull

• https://medium.com/@_JeffPoole/thoughts-on-push-vs-pull-architectures-666f1eab20c2

Middleware-as-a-Service (eg Mulesoft)

Open Source Integration Platforms

• https://n8n.io/
• https://camel.apache.org/
• https://www.openintegrationhub.org/?lang=en

iPaaS Commercial Vendors

iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) offers a managed integration platform

embedded iPaaS offers iPaaS, plus the ability to white-label the iPaaS power for your SaaS end-users

There are many vendors in the space

https://www.appmixer.com/blog/embedded-ipaas-comparison

• Axway
• Tray.io
• Elastic.io
• AppMixer
• Zapier
• Boomi
• Paragon.io
• Cyclr
• Blendr.io (Qlik)
• Snaplogic
• Prismatic.io
• IFTTT
• Hookdeck
• Workato
• Jitterbit
• Make.com

API Integrations

• https://snipcart.com/blog/integrating-apis-introduction
• https://tray.io/blog/what-is-an-api-integration-for-non-technical-people

API integrations connect the different components of your tech stack to make them talk to each other and pass data seamlessly.

They’re also important because building automated workflows of different applications that have been integrated via API can get rid of time-consuming manual labor, and also seamlessly transfer data that might otherwise require manual input and incur versioning issues, and enable you to do more of the important work you need to, faster.

Conceptual parts of an Integration

flows, nodes, triggers

trigger + action

source + target

connectors - integration components