IT organizations need to integrate cloud-based services with internal systems effectively in order to meet business priorities and deliver high-quality services. The best way to do this is with a corporate-wide integration strategy to help IT get the most out of the current SaaS offerings.
Here are some things to consider when developing your integration strategy.
1. Identify the People and Processes Involved
First, map out the basic people-and-processes portion of the equation. You need to understand how processes are orchestrated and defined inside of the SaaS solution and inside of your business as a whole. Then think about how the data moves — the data definitions. Ask yourself, “How is the data represented in each system along the way? How do those systems message to each other?” Because SaaS is based on more modern technologies than legacy on-premise solutions, the “plumbing” portion of the equation is generally takencare of for you, typically in the form of Web Services.
2. Look at How You Are Processing and Integrating Data
You must understand the infrastructure of your own enterprise and know what you have. The main cost of integration isn’t just about connecting into the SaaS provider; it is about exposing your existing legacy systems.
For example, some CIOs invested in enterprise service bus or service-oriented architecture several years ago and have been reaping the benefits from that investment. If you already have the key services you require, along with the service bus, and you have defined the services, then integration with SaaS can happen very quickly. With SaaS, it’s really just a matter of how fast you can get the business people to agree upon the deployment date and the processes, and less about coding and deployment itself.
3. Understand How SaaS FacilitatesEfficient Delivery
Service delivery is really about focusing on the software and the service. Many parts of the stack are being handled for you by the vendor. One of the ways the vendor does that is by abstracting data services and other applications and services that you can link into, so you no longer have to focus on those services.
It’s almost like imagining an integration project where one side of the integration is already very well defined, using the latest and greatest standards. At that point, all you have to worry about is whether the customer’s infrastructure works like yours. If so, the only key concern is to identify what objects you are passing back and forth between the two systems.
4. Overcome Key Challenges
With IT service management integration, you can expect to encounter the same integration challenges as you did with on-premise initiatives. With SaaS and on-premise models, you must deal with data definitions and processes. In the on-premise world, if some of the software is older, it may not have sufficiently defined interfaces. This creates challenges in terms of development and maintenance. Therefore, in the on-premise world, you would expect to do more of the heavy lifting yourself because you need to—in some cases, coding all the way down into challenging application programming interfaces (APIs).
With SaaS, however, the providers offer a well-defined setof APIs, instead of interfaces, and a well-defined data dictionary.
In the cloud, though, the challenges change. Outbound communications are straight forward because you are initiating the connection to the outbound of the enterprise into the SaaS solution. This can be achieved by setting up an https site for this connection to occur.
In the case of inbound communications from theSaaS solution calling into your enterprise, you basically have two choices:
You can either create a polling service that is called out periodically to the SaaS solution, or you can call into the enterprise from the SaaS solution, leveraging the client-side certification for authentication.
Of course, you need to be concerned about security, as you are pushing data in and out of the enterprise into the SaaS solution. That’s why it’s important to determine whether you are comfortable opening up a firewall so that the SaaS provider can call directly into your enterprise. To address this concern, keep in mind that the firewall will accept requests only from a certain provider and a certain IP range, and you can use a cloud certification capability to handle the authentication portion. Another optionis to set up a virtual private network (VPN) connection between the SaaSprovider and your own infrastructure.
5. Make the Integration StrategyCorporate-wide
Cloud computing makes an enterprise-wide service integration strategy even more important than ever. Before the growth of SaaS, the need for an integration strategy was something that CIOs could put on the back burner, but the advent of cloud brings it to the forefront. As helpful as having both the enterprise service and the integration strategy can be, these can often beput on hold because of the challenge of obtaining funding. However, a focus on business priorities is important. CIOs and architects must make the case for anintegration strategy by aligning it with business initiatives.
By Marc Ferrentino
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Marc Ferrentino, the chief technology officer of SaaS for BMC Software, is responsible for the SaaS strategy acrossa ll of the BMC product lines. Prior to joining BMC, he held several positions with Salesforce.com, including roles in R&D, customer success, sales, and enterprise strategy. His responsibilities have ranged from early-stage product development, evangelism, and helping develop Salesforce.com’s collaboration and platform strategic direction. Prior to Salesforce.com, he served as the vicepresident of Engineering at Vettro Corp and as vice president of Development atInternetCash.com. Over the course of his career, Ferrentino has also held technology positions at Goldman Sachs and Westinghouse/Cutler-Hammer. He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and has participated in the M.A. of Statistics program at Columbia University.