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Develop an Application Integration Strategy

Level the table before assembling the application integration puzzle or risk losing pieces.

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Your Challenge

  • Even though organizations are now planning for Application Integration (AI) in their projects, very few have developed a holistic approach to their integration problems resulting in each project deploying different tactical solutions.
  • Point-to-point and ad hoc integration solutions won’t cut it anymore: the Cloud, big data, mobile, social, and new regulations require more sophisticated integration tooling.
  • Loosely defined AI strategies result in point solutions, overlaps in technology capabilities, and increased maintenance costs; the correlation between business drivers and technical solutions is lost.

Our Advice

Critical Insight
  • Involving the business in strategy development will keep them engaged and align business drivers with technical initiatives.
  • An architectural approach to AI strategy is critical to making appropriate technology decisions and promoting consistency across AI solutions through the use of common patterns.
  • Get control of your AI environment with an appropriate architecture, including policies and procedures, before end users start adding bring-your-own-integration (BYOI) capabilities to the office.
Impact and Result
  • Engage in a formal AI strategy and involve the business when aligning business goals with AI value; each double the AI success rate.
  • Benefits from a formal AI strategy largely depend on how gaps will be filled.
  • Create an Integration Center of Competency for maintaining architectural standards and guidelines.
  • AI strategies are continuously updated as new business drivers emerge from changing business environments and/or essential technologies.

Get to Action

  1. Develop an Application Integration Strategy

    Obtain organizational buy-in and build a standardized and formal AI blueprint.

  2. Assess the organization's readiness for AI

    Assess your people, process, and technology for AI readiness and realize areas for improvement.

  3. Create an application integration service catalog

    Keep a record of services and interfaces to reduce waste.

  4. Hire an AI Architect

    Have a supervisor and manager of all AI-related activities to meet business requirements.

  5. Hire an AI Specialist

    Have a planner and coordinator of all AI-related activities within the organization's information systems.

  6. Assess the appropriateness for AI tools

    Determine if hand-coding or AI tools are appropriate. If AI tools are appropriate, identify how they will be hosted.

  7. Build an AI blueprint

    Compile the important information and artifacts to include in the AI blueprint.

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Realize the full potential of your business processes.

Implement a Social Media Program

Develop, execute, and govern a cohesive social media program across your entire organization to unlock the full potential of your social media strategy.

Develop a Mobile Management Strategy

Small devices can be a big challenge without a strategy to manage them.

Tags

Architecture, middleware, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, infrastructure, IBM, mobility, service-oriented architecture, Dell, Cloud, point-to-point, patterns, business process management, Amazon, enterprise service bus, Tibco, Pervasive, service catalog, application integration, IT steering committee, Boomi, Informatica, SnapLogic, Talend, Tibbr, big data, webmethods, custom coding, Jitterbit, Linxter, Scribe, Hubspan, Ion, blueprint, integration centre of competency, application program interface, process orchestration, if this then that, ai governance, integration platform as a service, social integration, self-service integration, cloudmq, mutesoft, ipaas

Related Content


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Level the table before assembling the application integration puzzle or risk losing pieces.

Companies Who Helped

  • University of Dallas Texas
  • RNJ Consulting
  • Crown Equipment Corporation
  • Fraser Health
  • Wesley Mission

Solution Road Map

Other Solution Sets in Application Integration

  1. Develop an Application Integration Strategy
    Level the table before assembling the application integration puzzle or risk losing pieces.
  2. Vendor Landscape: Application Integration Middleware
    Find the tastiest meat for your application sandwich.
  3. Vendor Landscape: Managed File Transfer
    Centralize, automate, and secure file transfer in the enterprise.
  4. Implement and Optimize Application Integration Governance
    Don’t let your applications govern you!
  5. Gain Control of Cloud Integration Strategies Before they Float Away
    Successful Cloud wranglers excel in four areas.
View the full Solution Road Map