The possibility of integrating heterogeneous and distributed systems with each other is indispensable in the era of Digital Transformation and Industry 4.0. Integration is collaboration and dialogue between machines, or rather, integration between software and services, internal or external to the organization.
Thanks to innovative applications integrated into a single well-structured software system, it is possible to interface isolated or separate systems with each other both within the company and at external customers or suppliers.
System integration can be seen as a communication software capable of facilitating collaboration between the resources operating in the company, but above all for external collaboration, with the various stakeholders who interact with the company itself.
This collaboration can be focused on a particular procedure or extend to the daily activities of the company, it can concern the processes and technologies adopted to follow the production cycle or the various processes connected to it, from warehouse to logistics, from sales to purchases.
These are just some of the integrations that can be made thanks to the implementation of a Digital Integration strategy that allows the various software present in the company, whereby software we mean not only the management software but above all the software present in the machines and systems, to share data and procedures.
Business integration includes technologies, processes, teams that connect data, applications, and devices that over time have transformed from a small group of point-to-point connections to a centralized model based on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and, finally, to a modern distributed architecture with many endpoint interface (APIs).
It is therefore essential for an innovative company to have installations and systems that are also interconnected with the outside world to increase its efficiency and fully exploit the potential of its systems. To do this, every organization, whether it is a multinational or a small or medium-sized enterprise, must be supported and supported by a System Integrator, to effectively respond to the challenges of our time and accelerate the digital transformation process.
Application Programming Interface
APIs are a software interface that allows two systems or applications to communicate and exchange data (usually in XML or JSON format), most commonly using the Internet, without knowing how they are implemented. A typical example of communication via API are the smartphone apps that communicate with the respective central systems such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Weather, ...
Furthermore, the APIs are independent of the type of operating system or language and adapt to the type of syntax or platform used, offering great freedom and potential for dynamic data interchange and interoperability.
Application Connectors
Application connectors are elements that regulate how components interact. Usually, these are standard customized links for some common APIs (e.g., e-Commerce platforms), which are used to quickly integrate new services or processes.
Enterprise Service Bus
An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a software infrastructure that supports the communication between processes in complex architectures by providing coordination, security, messaging, routing, and transformation services, acting as the backbone of the application architecture.
System Integrator
The System Integrator is a specialized company that deals with the integrations of the system, which consists in making different and incompatible systems communicate with each other to create a single interconnected work environment, where all systems and services are coordinated and communicate with each other to optimize and monitor business processes.