Pivoting is not only a common practice for vibrant startups in Silicon Valley but also for the classic enterprise. In this short blog, I will share with you my own recap of the International Integration Focus group SAPSA 2018 and how SAP and SAP Users are pivoting around the cloud and beyond!
1. Integration today, tomorrow
Let me start with this bold statement; “the integration we design and deploy today may be outdated tomorrow” Do you agree..? I am totally positive about that statement; and for those of you in charge of delivering integration solutions at your organisation it means that you have the duty to design and deliver integration-solutions which can cope with change and the rapid evolution of the business as a constant. When we start realising about it, we see the need for that every day, whether it is the adoption of new cloud-based Software Application as a Service (SaaS) that need to be integrated with your ERP, or the roll-out of a digitalisation-programme across several business units, they all introduce common challenges and considerable effort to integrate with your existing system-landscapes and business processes.
2. Best-of-Breed is back
Another important trend shared among folks at the #SAPSA2018, is the unstoppable move to the cloud and frenetic growth of Application Programming Interface (API’s) inside and beyond the enterprise. This trend is driving organisations to shift and redesign their traditional on-premise middleware and B2B-gateways, into best-of-breed, scalable and cost-efficient integration strategies. In most cases this results into hybrid (on-premise + cloud) integration architectures as a way of transiting into a near-future cloud only strategy. Depending on the nature of the business and maturity-level, organisations may also consider introducing API-Management next to or embedded in their Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS).
3 . Stop reinventing the wheel, and start reusing OOTB integration
With the rapid adoption of cloud-based software, companies are moving existing applications or creating new ones on multiple enterprise cloud-platforms available on the internet. This means an increasing demand for ERP and legacy integration from- and to the cloud. A typical API library from popular SaaS platforms such as Salesforce or ServiceNow, can easily contain hundreds of business operations (e.g. create, read, update, delete, etc), each accompanied by a large data model. Organisations facing that type of challenge should seriously reconsider before embarking themselves in lengthily and risky implementations with new API’s from scratch. They should instead give preference to out-of-the-box SaaS connectivity solutions provided by integration platform as a service (iPaaS) vendors that provide a rapid and secure way of reducing project delivery risks. As dedicated SAP partner for integration, Rojo Consultancy delivers specific cloud integration adapters and integration-content that help accelerate the integration of SaaS applications and API’s (e.g. Salesforce, ServiceNow, SharePoint Online, Alibaba.com, 1688.com, etc.) with your enterprise.
4. Say bye, bye to that Monolithic
A new antidote against the monolithic and alternative for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is visible on the horizon, and it comes in different shapes and sizes packed in containers. Today Microservices architecture is more than a hype, it brings new hope for those disappointed with the high-expectations and price of SOA and its predecessors. Microservices is not as such totally new, in fact many aspects have been borrowed from the SOA paradigm (reusability, abstraction, language-independent, granularity, etc..). However, the real advantages of Microservices are observed when Microservices arise from DevOps-oriented teams and deployed on containerised applications. Microservices strategy is doomed to fail when applied in a non-Agile environment without the notion of continuous integration delivery.
Some of the key take-aways from my session devoted to this topic:
- Microservices are not the holy grail.
- Agile/DevOps way of working is essential in the org.
- Microservices & Containers aren’t only for new apps
- Conduct a cost-benefit analysis before start.
- Evaluate your readiness to adopt microservices objectively
-Depending on results, consider alternatives to gain agility. - Identify projects for POCs and experimentation.
-Start with a monolithic and refactor
SAP is also getting their hands dirty with the new generation containerized applications, which is why they are currently working on a cloud-generic platform to manage Containers Orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes) across several cloud platforms such as Azure, Google cloud and Amazon. The project is called “Gardener – The Kubernetes Botanist” and it is intended to be/remain an open source project. By clicking here you can watch an introduction to Gardener.
I hope this short recap will be valuable to you, as support for your integration challenges you are facing and decisions ahead. Let me know your thoughts and other perspectives I have (certainly) not mentioned in this blog. Stay tuned and don’t forget your mission; make integration great again!
Inspired, interested in taking the topics in this blog to the next level? Or maybe ready to start a new journey in your integration strategy? Rojo Consultancy can support you with any integration-challenge. We are specialised in enterprise-integration with focus on Hybrid-, Cloud-integration and API-Management. Let’s connect!
About SAPSA 2018
In the first of week of November top SAP integration authorities, SAP partners & customers came together at the IFG and Swedish SAP Users group. They all share one common interest; united by the same passion and hungry for inspiration, latest trends and best-practices around integration! This year the event attracted more than 800+ participants during two jam-packed days with interesting knowledge-sharing sessions and live demo’s ranging from very functional SAP stuff to Microservices and even hardcore Java coding!
Rojo Consultancy was proudly one of the event-sponsors of the International Integration Focus group. For that special occasion we presented 5x different sessions around SAP Cloud Platform Integration Accelerators, SAP API Management, a customer case from a large insurance company in the Netherlands, the speed & power of SAP Java proxies and a visionary way of looking at integration architecture enriched with containers and Microservices.
Written by Roberto Viana – Enterprise Integration Architect at Rojo Consultancy and SAP Press Author
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