According to the Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report, around 90% of enterprises expect cloud usage to exceed prior plans due to the pandemic. In a post-COVID world, the race towards digitalization and cloudification has become very serious for businesses.

Today, cloud platforms are becoming more sophisticated. Yet, it’s important to note that on-prem and legacy systems are not going away anytime soon, making hybrid integrations inevitable. The real challenge lies in connecting on-prem and cloud infrastructure correctly. This is where a Hybrid Integration Platform (HIP) can help.

By 2022, Gartner forecasts at least 65% of large organizations will have implemented a hybrid integration platform to power their digital transformation.

What is a Hybrid Integration Platform?

A hybrid integration platform allows you to exchange information between two or multiple applications, where some of the applications are in the cloud, while others are on-premise.

The HIP solution must:

• Interface components to enable inbound and outbound information exchange.
• Include data translation tools so that all applications get data in the format that they can understand.
• Have process orchestration functionalities to control message flow or enable content-based routing.

Hybrid integration functionalities typically also include monitoring and alerting tools to ensure that the hybrid integration platforms operate as needed without errors, and in case of any faults, they can be fixed swiftly.

Benefits of a Hybrid Integration Platform

With the extensive adoption of cloud services, mobile apps, and IoT devices, businesses won’t be able to keep up with the competition without hybrid integration platforms. Some of the ways they can leverage HIP transformation are:

• A hybrid integration platform can plug into the major cloud providers and tools with minimal configuration, as well as access on-prem applications.
• It can considerably reduce the amount of time a development team needs to spend trying to get all applications to work together.
• It also offers out-of-the-box connectors that allow you to configure integrations instead of coding them, which frees up time to focus on more mission-critical tasks.
• Firewalls can be a problem, but HIPs can tackle that. You don’t need to give up security or control over the data.
• A hybrid integration platform ensures faster data integrations by breaking data silos.

Why Do You Need a Hybrid Integration Platform?

When it comes to integrating on-prem and cloud applications, the biggest challenge is connecting a variety of endpoints that the company uses from on-premise systems (often legacy ones), and extracting data from cloud-based applications and data sources.

Another challenge is to enable real-time data sharing from SaaS applications, on-premise legacy systems, and IoT devices because you need timely data. As batch processes are not sufficient, you need to ensure that you receive all the information in real-time.

You also need data translation so that all applications receive data in the format that they understand. Plus, there’s a need for monitoring ability to ensure that the integration operates as required without errors and sends notifications when it doesn’t work as intended.

To solve these challenges, you need a hybrid integration platform that enables agility and innovation by connecting all applications within your ecosystem and unlocking the data flow within your company.

Hybrid Integration Platform vs iPAAS

Unlike an iPAAS, a hybrid integration platform doesn’t only tackle integrations between cloud-based applications, but it also facilitates data integration between any applications regardless of whether they’re located on-premise or in the cloud.

A hybrid integration platform supports the challenge of pervasive integration by integrating applications and data sources in on-premise and cloud applications, with business partners and customer systems.

According to Gartner, conventional integration tools are not able to address the complexity of hybrid integrations. Therefore, hybrid integration platforms are typically enterprise iPAAS (EiPAAS) tools that can facilitate integrations between any endpoints.

Conclusion

Integrating new applications in the cloud with existing on-premise software is a major undertaking. Without a hybrid integration platform, it will be challenging –if not impossible –to drive quick-win digital transformations that are attainable in short timeframes and with faster delivery models.

IConduct’s iPAAS is a self-service integration platform that supports ever-changing business requirements, by simplifying cross-platform process integration in a hybrid environment.

Get a demo to learn how IConduct’s iPAAS can facilitate a successful HIP transformation for your organization.