Fernando Labastida’s Integration Blog

By Fernando Labastida

DM Review is a great source for articles on data and application integration. However, I have to take issue with a recent article on Application Integration for Midmarket Companies. The article starts out on the right foot, comparing enterprise-level ETL and EAI tools and custom coding, and poking holes in both. Enterprise-level ETL and EAI tools are like “using a chainsaw to open a letter,” and custom code is a very risky proposition: it monopolizes the time of the most skilled developers, lacks scalability and flexibility, and is not reusable, among other things.

However, the prescribed solution is all wrong. The article recommends an “integration appliance” as the answer to the midmarket integration challenge, asserting positive attributes such as low-TCO, no need for programming skills, fast delivery, and simpler operations. An integration appliance is a self-contained hardware/software combination that delivers “integration-in-a-box.”

However, customers and system integrators who have had experience with integration appliances point out the following drawbacks:

1. Simple integrations, such as direct mapping of data from one source to another, can be done without programming; however, when complex business rules have to be implemented, a more common scenario, appliances still require programming, often taking more time to implement than customers expect.
2. Appliances tend to be very costly. Up front costs are high and are not justified when the cost of their attendant software and hardware components are factored in; a proven integration application, coupled with a state-of-the-art server, properly configured by a system administrator, is more economical and provides more flexibility. Connecting additional end-points to the appliance, when complex business rules have to be implemented, cannot be done simply through drag-and-drop configuration, but requires programming, increasing the ongoing costs of ownership.
3. Meeting increasing performance demands with an appliance is complicated. Appliances are delivered with a fixed hardware configuration; optimizing the hardware for increasing data volume requires additional intervention by the appliance vendor. The latest application integration software, on the other hand, comes already equipped to utilize additional CPUs or cores if and when the client company decides to add horsepower, which it can do very cost effectively.

The best solution for midmarket application integration is a robust, agile, lightweight, low-TCO, integration software platform, that can either be delivered as a toolset with an easy-to-use yet powerful visual integration interface and extensive connectivity, or as a fully delivered, fixed-price integration solution.

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