Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the process of syncing or aligning the various systems and databases used within a company, network, or industry. It allows organizations or networks to share information, exchange data, and coordinate resources across diverse IT environments. This, in turn, results in more efficient collaboration and saves a lot of time and effort by all personnel involved.
Nowadays, there are several enterprise business intelligence solutions that can help with enterprise integration and take your business to the next level.
Specifically, enterprise application integration enables you to do the following:
- Promotes efficient collaboration between departments
- Connect multiple enterprise services
- Monitor application lifecycles and governance
If we talk about the latest stats by Mordor Intelligence, the EAI market is predicted to reach $22.69 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 15.42% during the forecast period, 2021 – 2026. These stats prove that organizations are moving towards integrated solutions to streamline their operations and improve collaboration between various departments.
Why is enterprise application integration important?
Enterprise application integration is key to enhancing internal processes and business activities and implementing and distributing critical applications. Using enterprise integration, companies can improve their operational scalability and increase their reach and revenue.
Here are a few significant advantages of enterprise integration for the company’s operations:
1. Information sharing: Enterprise integration enables the flow of information between different software programs within a company. It can consolidate data collection efforts, thereby eliminating the need for each application to collect and store data for its own purpose.
Integration also enables a single point of access to data for the people who need it. This means employees spend less time searching for information. Also, the data they get is often more complete and up to date. EAI also enables more effective collaboration between individual people and departments.
2. Simplified IT processes: Enterprise integration enables seamless collaboration and information exchange across multiple applications. This helps to streamline IT processes and make it easier for both users and organizations.
Specifically, it helps organizations to efficiently streamline data integration and services. For users, on the other hand, it enables them to access data faster. This simplified process modernizes the use and creation of enterprise integration patterns like file transfer, gateway services, and more.
3. Process automation: Enterprise application integration can automate processes that include data or activity from multiple software applications. For instance, CRM customer data can be integrated with an email marketing platform to deliver targeted messages to customers based on their prior preferences or demographics. Thus, the EAI platform helps the company invest resources where they’re most effective.
4. Maximizing opportunities: Enterprise integration also helps the team proactively to take advantage of new business opportunities. By having control over all data access points, teams can quickly respond and adjust to time-sensitive events like supply chain disruptions or new application management procedures. Teams become empowered to implement multiple integration solutions by leveraging a common approach for information sharing and collaboration.
5. Improved response time: In a properly integrated system, the response time for any desired information is reduced to its minimum level. There are real-time alerts and routine messages, which could be sent via the network to the desired person.
Key elements of enterprise application integration
1. Application programming interfaces (APIs): APIs allow data transfers between different applications or systems. These are situated between an application and web server and enable companies to share the data with business partners, third-party developers, and internal departments.
2. Application integration: This is another key element of EAI that allows individual applications to work collaboratively. By making data sharing easy and combining workflows and processes, organizations receive immense benefits from integrations that modernize infrastructures without rework. Furthermore, application integration helps cloud-based and on-premise systems like CRMs and ERPs to interact successfully without major changes to existing applications.
3. Events: They are records of change or new actions. When one application or service undergoes a change or performs an action with respect to the functions of another application or service, the first one records an event. Other applications or services can detect the published event. And then process the event, perform one or more reciprocal actions or simply ignore the event.
4. Messaging: Messaging helps to provide reliable communication delivery while preserving network-wide message integrity, data protection, and regulatory compliance via security-rich functions.
5. Data: Data enables continuous improvement of enterprise architecture and helps assess the usage of integrations. Data also reveals recommended target integration patterns like service-oriented architecture (SOA) message-driven, etc.) and other inputs that help define the target integration state.
EndNote
Enterprise application integration creates opportunities for significant growth for businesses. By automating API-based ecosystems, you can significantly enhance team productivity and increase your reach to scale your revenue. On the other hand, customer experiences are also enriched with faster, more satisfying interactions.
So, if you plan to invest in enterprise integration, it’s advisable to contact an enterprise app development company. The experts will guide you through the process and help you to scale your business.