Cloud computing technology’s accessibility and ease of use have turned it into a booming element of the IT industry. But the rise of the cloud, coupled with competing technologies like APIs and EDI software, has brought on new challenges to companies as well.

Combining on-premise applications, cloud software solutions, and social platforms makes the integration process much more complicated. This has many companies turning to “integration platform as a service,” or “iPaaS,” vendors.

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Table of Contents:

• What Is iPaaS?
• Key Features
• Benefits
• Top iPaaS Vendors and Solutions

What Is iPaaS?

iPaaS is a type of technology that integrate both cloud-based services and legacy on-premise systems, applications, data and processes. For instance, if you use EDI software but are looking to adopt an API system as well, iPaaS can help integrate the two technologies, allowing for smooth B2B communication. More generally, iPaaS will enable you to easily adapt to new technology while keeping your system integrated and free-flowing.

iPaaS is gaining traction in the business world because it solves many common problems that arise when trying to integrate multiple cloud-based systems. It serves as an adapter for developers that can help with flow management, integration of applications and much more.

As a next-generation solution that helps integrate cloud-based and on-premise software solutions, the effectiveness of iPaaS has allowed it to outperform many of the more traditional forms of middleware.

Technologies such as iPaaS make the transition from older to newer technologies much smoother — while a change in the industry standard doesn’t happen overnight, adopting an integration platform early on will make those gradual changes much easier to handle.

Key Features

Not every iPaaS solution is created equally, and it’s important to be aware of your business’s exact needs before deciding on the right one for the job. Here are a few key features to consider when researching iPaaS:

API Management

One of the main reasons companies turn to iPaaS solutions is to manage their B2B data exchange processes. In our recent EDI trends article, many of the experts we spoke to predicted a move towards API and away from EDI technology. But because EDI and API aren’t directly compatible, iPaaS vendors can integrate the two on the backend, allowing businesses to use both technologies while their partners are still using the older technology.

Many comprehensive iPaaS solutions come with API management functionality, giving companies a single platform for creating, deploying, and managing all of their APIs — and allowing for a much quicker way to add new functions as they become necessary.

However, there are still areas where iPaaS solutions are lacking when it comes to APIs. This is especially true when talking about more advanced management capabilities, such as a developer portal or analytics.

While this functionality is already being added to some iPaaS solutions, particularly those specializing in B2B data exchange, it may take a while until iPaaS can completely take over the role of API lifecycle management.

EDI Management

Electronic data interchange, or EDI, is a popular solution for system-to-system exchange of documents that’s been a long-time industry standard for transferring document data. But, as mentioned earlier, iPaaS is quickly changing the way in which businesses connect data flows between cloud and on-premise processes, making the entire process a lot quicker and easier.

While EDI is still widely used as an effective method to transfer data such as orders or invoices between businesses, iPaaS provides the same functions without the need to install and maintain on-premise software.

Not all of today’s iPaaS solutions have EDI gateway functionality, but those that do can act as a complete, cloud-based EDI solution and offer features such as data transfers, workflow configuration, transaction monitoring and much more. With iPaaS, it’s possible to see the status of all the EDI communications that are exchanged between businesses, so you can quickly resend the documents that have failed delivery.

Centralized Management

An iPaaS vendor can help you gain a single view of all your integrations from a centralized, user-friendly, web-based console. This allows you to effectively create, monitor and manage integrations across the organization, which helps you quickly connect almost any tool. With this ability, you’re able to quickly scale and develop whenever needed.

IPaaS vendors also provide real-time data connections between all applications, which is essential for decision-makers at your organization. Having a full view of the company’s operations enables executives to make informed and more accurate decisions.

What’s more, with an iPaaS solution, it’s possible to go beyond just the connection of data. It also permits advanced customization of how different systems communicate with each other, so you have complete control over the entire integration process.

This is critical for companies that want to ensure that their data is always secure. Manual data transfers pose many risks of the information getting lost or stolen, but with iPaaS solutions, it’s easy to account for all the data that’s transferred.

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Primary Benefits

Here are some of the most important benefits of iPaaS solutions:

Greater Efficiency and Productivity

The most prominent benefit of iPaaS is that it helps connect different software applications and synchronize data. This way, your team isn’t constantly switching between systems to find the information they need — instead, all data is accessible from a more centralized location. iPaaS allows users to stay focused for longer during a task and provides much better visibility of your business operations through comprehensive reports.

Improved Decision

Decision-makers at all levels of a business need to be able to react to changes at a moment’s notice, and every wrong decision can have huge consequences. That’s why it’s so important to have as much information as possible in order to make the right call in every situation.

Because iPaaS can significantly reduce the gap between data entry and business intelligence, organizations can track real-time data about their operations and make judgments that are as accurate as possible.

Since iPaaS solutions operate on the cloud, data can be accessed from multiple devices and from any location. This level of access means that the time it takes to find relevant information is cut down dramatically, providing an edge when it’s needed the most.

Stronger Security

According to a 2022 King Saud University literature review, 25% of surveyed articles cite information security as a risk for migrating to cloud technology. With the help of comprehensive iPaaS solutions, the risk of data breaches can be greatly reduced, thanks to essential security features such as real-time intruder alerts and fraud detection, as well as easily accessible reports.

iPaaS platforms undergo regular updates, making sure that the latest features and security measures are always in place to offer maximum protection. They also incorporate proven and tested security protocols, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access it and make changes.

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Top iPaaS Vendors and Solutions

Since iPaaS is quickly gaining traction, new solutions are becoming available every day. But to make your selection process easier, here are a few of the best iPaaS software providers that have already proven to be both reliable and effective:

Jitterbit

Jitterbit is a data and application integration suite that’s gaining recognition as one of the leading iPaaS solutions out there. The system provides a cost-effective and user-friendly way to create and manage a wide range of integrations.

With the help of Jitterbit, connecting all kinds of different cloud-based, software-as-a-service and on-premise applications is much easier thanks to its easy-to-use API creation technology that helps bring legacy systems back to life.

Track all your systems from a single place accessible by any device with an Internet connection.

The iPaaS solution can easily handle even complex, large-scale integrations within big organizations, making it much easier for developers to connect multiple systems with the help of Jitterbit Enterprise MX 3.0, which leverages industry standard protocols as well as open source code.

The software’s user management supports a multi-user environment that facilitates collaboration when larger teams are working on a project. This allows you to greatly increase the efficiency of the project because it’s easy to communicate what needs to be done and avoid confusion.

MuleSoft

CloudHub by MuleSoft is one of the most popular iPaaS solutions available. It was designed specifically to fit the needs of enterprises that need to take advantage of the benefits of cloud-based applications, while securely connecting them with on-premise systems.

MuleSoft offers an “exchange” for users to download and connect whatever applications are necessary.

MuleSoft is perfect for companies that aren’t yet ready to fully commit to the cloud but want to get started and familiarize themselves with its benefits. With MuleSoft’s Mule ESB, companies can use a reliable and proven on-premise solution before painlessly transitioning to MuleSoft’s exclusively cloud-based CloudHub when they’re ready.

Mule ESB is one of the most popular open-source ESB solutions with a robust list of features, allowing you to bridge applications together — whether on-premise or on the cloud — which makes the entire process much simpler.

Boomi

Dell introduced the first iPaaS in 2008, and since then, has continued to deliver excellent integration capabilities with their Boomi suite. Boomi is made up of five different applications, known as Integrate, Hub, Exchange, Mediate and Flow.

Boomi combines a complete suite of applications with a clean, uncluttered interface.

Integrate works to connect your applications and their data to reduce the silos created by separate programs, supporting numerous popular systems such as Oracle, SAP, Workday, NetSuite, Shopify and more. Hub provides a centralized location through which users can access company data. Exchange manages B2B and EDI communications, Mediate focuses on APIs, and Flow helps with workflow automation and app development.

Boomi boasts of having “the industry’s best uptime” and emphasizes client trust when dealing with issues like compliance and security. It offers scalable solutions, parent and child accounts for multiple levels of business, user roles, process libraries and more.

Informatica

Last, but not least, we have Informatica’s iPaaS solution. Like Boomi, Informatica is modular and offers eight different cloud services which make up their larger platform. First, Informatica can integrate your data to create sophisticated and comprehensive analytical reports. This solution supports data of high volumes, can reformat data to make it compatible with other data and allows users to customize their data integration projects.

Informatica’s platform allows for simple but powerful security and high customizability.

Informatica also allows users to create and manage APIs, in addition to managing EDI messages. This iPaaS vendor provides several data protection strategies as well to ensure your company’s data is as safe as it would be on-premise.

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Final Thoughts

iPaaS solutions are a great resource when it comes to making the transition from one software system to another. However, not every iPaaS solution contains the same functionality, and as such, will not perform the same for your business. It’s important to compare several solutions and their features to fully understand which system is best for you.

What do you think of our iPaaS comparison? Are there any iPaaS providers that we left out? Let us know by leaving a comment below!