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SaaS Customers Rethink Cloud Strategy Due to Integration Concerns

By Carolyn J Dawson
TMCnet Contributor

SaaS (News - Alert) applications are increasingly being used. The latest trend is moving towards hybrid architectures. Cloud-integration has therefore become a mission-critical priority for enterprises. Some SaaS customers are rethinking their cloud computing strategies due to the challenges faced during cloud integration. Prospective customers are therefore being deterred from adopting SaaS in the first place. SaaS users are seeking help of SaaS vendors to provide cloud integration solutions.

A major obstacle for end users is integration. Cloud integration technologies and solutions are however not being developed by SaaS vendors. As compared to developing integration solutions, SaaS vendors are giving higher priority to their SaaS offerings. With the focus of SaaS vendors being on delivering high quality business software, this decision makes sense from a business standpoint. An ad hoc point-to-point approach is mostly taken by SaaS vendors for integration as it is not their top priority. Customer expectations are therefore often not met.

Building integrations from scratch for SaaS vendors involve time and costs. Hiring system integrators to work on integration projects also involve costs. SaaS vendors therefore have fewer resources to devote to their flagship products and services. A packaged solution is needed by SaaS vendors. This solution should allow vendors to quickly build integrations and connectors for their customers. Vendors will be therefore able to focus on their core business.

A set of tools that can bridge the gap between end user needs and SaaS vendors' ability to meet them are needed. Integration Platform as a Service or iPaaS helps in bridging this gap. Integrations across the cloud and enterprise can be built and run with this cloud-based platform, iPaaS. Integration applications can be therefore configured by SaaS vendors without writing and maintaining custom code. Packaged integration solutions can be therefore offered by SaaS vendors to customers.

Integration applications can be also deployed by SaaS users to iPaaS. Popular SaaS applications and cloud services can be quickly integrated by SaaS users with the help of a robust set of out-of-the-box connectors. SaaS users can build customized integrations to suit specific use cases with the open and flexible, iPaaS. A secure channel for connecting cloud to premise is also included.