The future of integration platform as a service (iPaaS) shows huge promise for businesses of all sizes. The integration solution remains one of the fastest-growing enterprise software market segments. Its $2 billion current market size is expected to hit $13 billion by 2026, with giant producers pushing the market further in the U.S. and other North American countries.
Many people can appreciate the growth of iPaaS in recent years, but only a few are familiar with the primary benefits for large and smaller businesses. This guide delves into iPaaS, how the technology works, and its use case benefits for different industries.
What is iPaaS?
The business world is growing more digital, with endless tools and innovations to improve their operations. According to HubSpot, the average employee uses at least eight apps, creating multiple data silos that take a lot of time to leverage these data sources for operations and decisions.
Businesses need frictionless integration services to manage multiple types of operational resources from legacy systems to cloud platforms, especially in today’s internet of things (IoT) world. That’s where iPaaS integration solutions come in handy. The iPaaS definition connotes a unified solution to manage disparate applications and cloud environments.
An iPaaS is a cloud-based service, making it easy for businesses to deploy cloud and on-premises appliances. It’s a move away from using traditional and unreliable data integration services to a platform acting as a single source of truth. Businesses can subscribe to the platform, surrendering their integration needs.
How does it work?
Businesses deploy iPaaS solutions based on their unique business processes and customer needs. However, most iPaaS platforms leverage similar methods to connect applications with the help of essential cloud features. Typically, the iPaaS process begins with pre-built connectors and business rules to orchestrate integration workflows.
The process is premised on four main components: connectivity, application integration, data integration, and API management. The process requires any iPaaS provider to host application servers and infrastructure data, routing and mapping data integration between sender and receiver data objects.
What are the benefits of iPaaS?
Businesses can enjoy various benefits from iPaaS depending on the factors influencing the technology’s deployment. Some of the general benefits include the following.
Increased Productivity
IPaaS thrives by eliminating data silos helping businesses access data and facilitate operations in less time. Generally, it can impact your business’s productivity from several angles, giving many executives more reasons to invest in iPaaS, including scalability and agility.
Also, the enhanced monitoring and management process associated with iPaaS can help businesses prevent failures and wasteful operations. IPaaS deployment requires no hardware or middleware to integrate applications, which means fewer expenses for your IT team.
Enhanced Decision-Making
The business world is evolving rapidly, and many companies are increasingly adopting business intelligence (BI) and effective resources to make accurate decisions with real-time data analytics. A huge part of this relies on the pace with which apps can communicate and exchange data favoring IoT devices. IPaaS can reduce the gap between BI tools and data entry, making it easier to collect, track and leverage a company’s data.
Low Code Development
IPaaS saves your businesses from allocating funds to recruit expensive developers since it supports creating low code environments for technical anon technical users. This low-code environment also affords business users unparalleled access to huge volumes of data for their operations.
IPaaS is touted as a successor to the ETL (Extract, Transfer, Load) data integration method, which pulls data from multiple data sources with strict processes reserved for IT departments. In contrast, iPaaS is a zero-code alternative that democratizes access to all business users regardless of their tech backgrounds.
In 2020, Gartner tipped iPaaS as the largest stand-alone integration market. The adoption of this integration technology is expected to increase as workflow automation, and IoT capabilities continue to gain ground in the business world.
