Updated on by Fraser Davidson
There are many reasons that a vendor might subscribe to an embedded iPaaS solution. There are, amongst others, the obvious ones like amplification – delivering an enlarged integration ecosystem – like agility – improving time to market – like scalability – automatically configuring integrations to individual users’ requirements. However, there is also an important one – control.
Why is control important to an enterprise?
As you grow you are subject to different pressures. As both your client base and likely your employee base, scales then the ability to control your procedures, processes and organisation becomes increasingly essential.
That control can come in many different flavours.
Procedural Control
Whether you are large or small, integrations are critical to the delivery of your solution. As you scale, your integration ecosystem and team will likely scale. Implementing an embedded iPaaS at the heart of your integration suite can provide you with a standardised methodology for integration delivery, management and response.
An embedded iPaaS, simply put, acts as a single pane of glass to enable integration delivery and monitoring, whilst also providing a standardized environment for integration delivery.
Absent an embedded iPaaS then you are either faced with multiple engineers delivering multiple solutions in a, potentially, non-standardized manner or you are faced with the engineering effort of building your own ‘pain of glass’ over your ecosystem to manage the multitude of integrations – a clear distraction from core product delivery.
Integration Customization Control
It would be lovely if all integrations were Model T Fords: one format, one colour, no choices. In reality, integrations require customization on a client-by-client basis.
At the simplest level, it is the handling of the authentication processes for each and every customer. Embedded iPaaS systems such as Cyclr handle this in an automated fashion, automatically deploying to client-segregated accounts. At the more complex level, it is the automatic enablement of field mapping customisation on an integration-by-integration basis. Using a high-quality embedded iPaaS system, the creation of a single integration template can be varied for each individual end-user prior to being auto-saved into a client-segregated account.
Control over integration customisation.
Data Control or Control Management
Data control or control management is essential to an enterprise because they receive and hold a lot of company and customer data. Therefore, they must comply with data protection laws and regulations such as GDPR. With an embedded iPaaS, the enterprise can check errors, implement corrections and keep projects on track whilst being compliant.
Absent and embedded iPaaS, this need for control might hinder integration growth. However, with a good embedded iPaaS platform, the enterprise has the tools to hand to facilitate the achievement of its organizational data control goals.
SLA and Delivery Control
An enterprise is going to be technically literate but that doesn’t necessarily mean they always know or understand what is happening with the data, automation and workflows.
Integration projects are time and resource-intensive processes that can add strain to already stretched IT resources and experts. An embedded iPaaS provides significantly improved control over the delivery and response times (SLA) measures for integration delivery by enabling a wider group of technical and non-technical staff to manage the integration suite as well as taking integration out of the traditional development path (as the embedded iPaaS rests between the application’s existing API and the World). With an embedded iPaaS new integrations can typically be built in hours, not days.
Control the Customer Experience
Pairing an enterprise ecosystem with an embedded iPaaS can arm an organisation with the ability to build, deploy and control integrations natively.
This means having the ability to stay in control of your data and application ecosystem, which will always be up-to-date and supported. Moreover, it enables you to better control your customer relationship, keeping the customer closer to you (through native integration delivery) rather than pushing them elsewhere to resolve their integration needs.
Modern embedded integration platforms provide enterprises with visual and interactive tools that enable quick integration creation and deployment. Turning a once developer-only task into something anyone in an enterprise can achieve.
As a result, an enterprise can directly resolve and control its own data integration challenges and enhance the organisation with interoperability in a standardised format.
Data Security Control
Embedded integration platforms, like Cyclr, take data security and compliance very seriously. They have a number of established measures and protocols to ensure client data is secure and under an enterprise’s control.
In regard to deployment methods, with Cyclr the shared service instances available offer high levels of compliance and security. The instances are delivered using AWS and with a choice of geographic locations – UK, EU, USA or APAC. You should also expect your embedded iPaaS vendor to have compliance accreditation such as SOC 2 Level II.
But, an enterprise will want complete control over how and where its data is processed. Therefore single or multiple private cloud implementations are ideal and are available in any geographic location supported by AWS or Azure.
On top of this, an embedded iPaaS, like Cyclr can be deployed directly into an enterprise’s own AWS or Azure account. It’ll be in a dedicated and ring-fenced environment, meaning no data is processed outside and controlled by the enterprise.
Enterprise and Embedded iPaaS
The benefits of an integrated data ecosystem:
- Drive efficiencies across departments and resources as well as improve internal processes.
- Integration growth means product growth which will please your existing customers and entice new prospects.
- Upskill and improve employee motivation as well as overall organisation performance.
- Increases security, compliance and accuracy standards.
Ultimately, it can help an enterprise accomplish organisational goals and facilitate coordination.
