Data Integration: Your Cloud Strategy’s Silver Lining?

I wrote a post on the Perspectives blog today about the importance of a comprehensive data integration strategy to cloud success: “What’s In A Data Integration Cloud?” The post cites IDC research from earlier in the year that notes that “by the end of 2009, 76% of U.S. organizations will use at least one SaaS-delivered application for business use” and that “the percentage of U.S. firms which plan to spend at least 25% of their IT budgets on SaaS applications will increase from 23% in 2008 to nearly 45% in 2010.”

Great news, right? But is your organization ready?

I broke the data integration cloud down into the three generally accepted categories:

• Software as a Service (SaaS) – Don’t be fooled by hosted enterprise software running on Amazon (IaaS). See this concise post by Roman Stanek on this topic: Please Don’t Let the Cloud Ruin SaaS. A true integration as a service solution must be designed for non-technical users and must be built on a multitenant framework. In other words, “Think Outside the Box!”
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) – Targeted at developers, SIs and ISVs a cloud integration platform should go beyond purpose-built services and allow custom integration tasks to be developed and published to the cloud leveraging existing investments and sharing common metadata. In my opinion, this is where things really get interesting.
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – As both public and private clouds become a more widely accepted IT infrastructure deployment model, look to see traditional powerful and complex integration services available “in the cloud” as a “hosted” option to keep costs down, as well as improve IT productivity and agility.

The bottom line: As I’ve said before, whatever you do, don’t wait to integrate. According to this article:

65 percent of IT managers recognize integration issues as the top barrier for SaaS adoption.”

Now that I’ve got your attention, instead of simply thinking about integration in terms of end-points and business processes (which are important, don’t get me wrong), be sure to develop a comprehensive cloud integration strategy that also takes into account:

• Where you have in house skills and investments;
• Who requires what functionality by when;
• How and where you will be able to take advantage of all three cloud integration categories (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS).