elastic.io is introducing the second version of its platform standardizing the integration of various IT applications. The new approach allows to integrate self-developed connectors into a superordinate platform and thus, connect any number of cloud-based as well as on-premise IT applications in a standardized environment and easily monitor all processes.
The empowering democratization of business applications
How many applications a large company, say having >1000 employees, uses compared to a very small company that counts only 10 people in its team?
If you think that the smaller a company is, the fewer IT applications it uses, you are not even close to the reality. Several recent reports state that both enterprise companies and SMBs alike use on average 11-16 various applications, and will be using considerably more in a couple of years. As Okta nicely put it in its Okta’s Business Work Report: The size doesn’t matter.
You can safely say that this phenomenon is largely thanks to the so called democratization of business software: the growing number of available IT business applications and changes in pricing models (subscription-based and pay-per-use models that came almost simultaneously with the introduction of cloud computing and SaaS) led to their ever increasing accessibility. This empowered companies of all sizes to have access to a high number of business critical applications.
The reverse side of this, though, is a highly diffused demand.
And indeed, this is exactly what we ourselves were observing within the last 1,5 years after we came with the first version of our platform out of the beta. Since then 4k users (individuals as well as companies) registered on our platform, having 10M integration executions per month, and we received dozens of requests for connectors that were not available on our platform. Yet about 90% of all these requests were about absolutely different applications and only 10% were so called repeated requests.
Now think about it in this light: Not only there are hundreds of different business applications for all needs and purposes, but they somehow need to be connected to be able to mutually exchange data. And with at least 11-16 applications running in a company, big or small, this is no more a solely enterprize companies’ issue. Small and mid-size companies need to integrate far too many applications with each other too. The question #1 that remains relevant for any size company is: How to do this quickly, efficiently and preferably not spending too much?
And so we at elastic.io decided to meet companies’ developers as well as system integrators, independent software vendors and software solution providers halfway. We developed a new version of our integration platform and opened it for them to let them develop their own custom application connectors and application integration solutions.
For this, we revolutionized the complete approach to an integration platform altogether.
NOTE: If you want to see our platform live in action click on “Request Demo”.
New features added to the platform
Component Creation Kit
Our Component Creation Kit gives you a clear structure for building custom components (application connectors, databases integrations, etc) from scratch using Java or Node.js SDKs with JSON-based data exchange. Other programming languages are supported.
Standardized Development, Integration and Monitoring Tools
The standardization approach helps optimize overall application development and maintenance, and allows to build and deploy application integration faster and more cost-effective.
Open-Source Prebuilt Connectors
There is a considerable number of connectors for cloud-based as well as on-premise software applications like Salesforce, MS Dynamics Navision or Shopware, which we had built ourselves for customer projects. These are now available as already pre-configured open-source connector templates with all mission-critical objects (e.g. customers, leads, products) being delivered out-of-the box. You can take them as ready-to-use connectors and modify them according to your own needs.
Container-Based Infrastructure with Docker
Apache Mesos and Docker underlying the new version of the platform ensure not only complete isolation of resources but also an efficient implementation of microservices architecture. This makes our platform, by the way, currently the first and only microservices-based, multi-tenant iPaaS on the market that can be deployed not only in the cloud, but also on-premise.
Industry-Unique White-Labeling Option
The new version of our platform is currently the only white-label iPaaS (integration platform as a service). System integrators can now use the platform fully under their own branding and even host it in their own environment, while ISVs can integrate the platform straight into their software.
NOTE: If you want to see our platform live in action click on “Request Demo”.
Application integration for SIs, ISVs and end customers
We have already observed how diversely the new integration platform can be used on a vertical scale. For example, system integrators can reduce their application integration efforts cost-wise as well as time-wise by up to 85% thanks to the centralised monitoring across all integrations and out-of-the-box connectivity. Thus, they can now put together an attractive offer not only for large customers, but also for small and medium businesses and so get access to a new market that has been left unexplored by them for far too long. For example, they can use our pre-built connectors to offer digital agencies of any size integration of their webshops with available ERP or CRM systems.
Check out: 6 competitive advantages system integrators get with the elastic.io new platform version
Independent software vendors can build connectors to their applications in a superordinate environment and provide limitless connectivity to other cloud as well as on-premise applications, expanding so their integration offerings considerably and increasing sales opportunities. ISVs can also have a full control how deep the set of data they want to integrate for their customers should be and thus gain a competitive advantage over other similar products. Just compare this to sending your customer to a third-party integration solution for your application that might be already pre-built and ready-to-use but integrate exactly the same set of data as it does for your direct competitor’s solution.
Last but not least, developers from large as well as small and medium-sized companies can use the platform as a middleware to connect various legacy and new systems, whether on-premise or in the cloud. The standardization approach pursued by elastic.io makes it for them easier than before to develop, govern, scale and monitor application integration flows.
In its turn, elastic.io takes over the implementation of critical application connectors. Considering that in most cases the real fun in terms of costs and time expenditure starts AFTER initial application integration (largely due to the need of ongoing maintenance and support of the applications), end customers can reduce application support and maintenance costs considerably by deploying the new version of the elastic.io integration platform.
NOTE: If you want to see our platform live in action click on “Request Demo”.
Standardization is the way to new cloud opportunities
The talk about the benefits of the cloud for businesses of all types and sizes have been going for years already, but the reality has shown that just being in the cloud or using cloud-based applications doesn’t actually work its magic. Developers still need to spend a considerable amount of time on connecting different applications to each other and maintaining integrations afterwards; companies still need to spend lots of money on developers to connect applications and maintain integrations.
We at elastic.io firmly believe that the next essential step is the democratization of application integration: It should be standardized, easy-to-do and easy-to-learn.
With the new version of our integration platform, we want to be the first who dares to introduce this step: The platform allows to standardize integration tools and integration processes, achieving higher efficiency and reducing internal risks. Furthermore, the elastic.io centralization approach helps maintain different systems regardless of how many integrations need to be monitored and managed.
With all changes made, the implementation possibilities for the platform have actually grown at an exponential rate: It can be used now well beyond plain API application integration, but also for Mobile, Big Data and IoT.
For further information please contact [email protected] or schedule your first demo with us.
