An Overview of Azure Integration Services

Azure Integration Services is an offering by Microsoft Cloud for performing mission-critical integrations. It provides Azure customers with a serverless compute experience that helps drive efficiency and consistency when connecting applications.

The Case for Azure Integration Services

Things have changed fundamentally in the IT integration world. A few years ago, we had integration specialists and architects whose sole purpose was to help organizations with integration. Today, things are different. The need for organizations to increase the rate of business change (digital transformation) now drives integration.

Enterprises rely on all manner of mission-critical apps. Microsoft Azure handles mission-critical cloud workloads with ease. If a company cannot integrate mission-critical apps to an organization, the value of the apps diminishes. The Azure’s integration services and capabilities give enterprises incredible value, both externally and internally.

Application Integration Is the Digital Transformation Backbone

According to Gartner, almost two-thirds of enterprises will have a hybrid integration platform in place soon. As a result, enterprises will be able to pace their time to market and efficiency, among other things.

Integration Scenarios

There are four main integration scenarios. They include:

• Application to Application

This involves connecting applications within the organization. These applications might run on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid setup.

• Software as a Service (SaaS)

This involves the connection of business applications to Software as a Service providers’ applications. SOAP and REST interfaces usually do this integration.

• Internet of Things (IoT)

This involves integrating applications with IoT devices. The popularity of IoT is increasing, and a cloud-based integration solution is perfectly suited to address this variety of new integrations. This is because companies can access it from any location.

• Business to Business

This involves connecting the applications of your organization with those of a partner organization. It relies on standard formats, such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Integration Challenges

When you’re building applications that talk to different systems and share data, there are some inherent challenges you’re bound to face. Here are some of them:

• Each system has different formats, APIs, and data sources.
• Some services are service-oriented, while others you distribute.
• Some services reside on-premises while others reside in the cloud.

The solution to these problems is IPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service). Many organizations are now moving to IPaaS to overcome integration challenges. This is where Azure Integration Services comes in.

Azure Integration Services

Building an integration platform involves four key components. We need to look at its parts:

1. API Management
2. Azure Service Bus
3. Azure Logic Apps
4. Azure Event Grid

The platform allows you to connect applications within your business to improve productivity and improve time to market. You can also connect applications between businesses to strengthen relationships and facilitate collaboration.

Azure API Management

Azure allows you to publish API’s within a safe environment and connect them to back-end systems located anywhere in the world. This is a boon for businesses looking to expand their operations, find new customers, drive deeper customer engagement, and create new channels.

You can take any back-end system and seamlessly launch an API program with Azure API Management. Some benefits of using Azure API Management include:

• It attracts developers.
• It works with any scale, API, and host.
• It launches secure and optimized APIs.
• It gets insights into the performance of your APIs.

Azure Logic Apps

The Logic Apps allow you to automate your workflows and orchestrate your organization’s business processes. It simplifies how you design and build scalable solutions for:

• Data Integration
• App Integration
• System Integration
• Business-To-Business (B2B) Communication
• Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

So, what are the benefits of Azure Logic Apps?

• Reduce integration challenges with out-of-the-box connectors
• Cloud-based business-to-business and enterprise messaging
• Integrate and connect data from the cloud to an on-premises deployment
• Web-based workflow designer

Azure Service Bus

This is a scalable and reliable enterprise messaging solution. It allows you to transfer data between different services and applications using messages. The message is in binary format and can contain text, XML, or JSON.

Some advantages of Azure Service Bus include:

• It simplifies cloud messaging.
• It allows you to build scalable, reliable cloud solutions.
• It builds enterprise messaging platforms with complex message routing.

Azure Event Grid

The Azure Event Grid gives users a simple event-based publish-subscribe (pub-sub) model. You get to build applications using an event-driven pattern. It allows you to only react and do stuff when things happen. This makes it easier for others to program their own interfaces on the back of these events.

So, what are the benefits of Azure Event Grid?

• It has an HTTP-based event delivery that’s simple and easy to use.
• You can build more reliable apps through reactive programming.
• It enables you to focus on product innovation.

Conclusion

Azure Integration Services is a great way to connect with partners, create relationships with other businesses, and discover new business opportunities. And the best part is, you can do this in quick time to market.