Integration platform as a service (iPaaS) has become the most popular and most widely used software technology platform to support what we call enterprise automation, that is, the combination of the classic integration and automation disciplines.
iPaaS technology achieved such a dominant market position driven by a number of factors, including:
- affinity with the cloud architecture and SaaS,
- versatility to enable multiple scenarios,
- speed of adoption and delivery,
- intrinsic support for a highly distributed democratized delivery model
Modern iPaaS Use Cases
Because of these characteristics, user organizations have increasingly adopted iPaaS to deliver the compelling benefits of enterprise automation faster, at a lower cost and to broader audiences. Broadly speaking, these benefits include:
- enhanced operational efficiency and cost reduction,
- greater business agility,
- shorter innovation cycles,
- improved user experience,
- greater real-time insights and situation awareness.
Building on its unique characteristics and market success, since its appearance, around 2010, iPaaS has dramatically extended its functional footprint and improved its “-ilities” (availability, scalability, manageability, reliability and performance) as well as its security, governance and administration capabilities.
Most CIOs, IT Leaders and enterprise architects now consider iPaaS as an enterprise-grade platform that can support the functional and non-functional requirements of midsized, large and global organizations.
In many instances, organizations, especially large, adopt an iPaaS to complement their established portfolios of traditional enterprise automation platforms (for example, enterprise service buses, data integration tools, business process automation/management tools and B2B/EDI gateways).
However, in a growing number of cases iPaaS is replacing some of those “legacy” tools because of its superior productivity, versatility, and support to the democratized model.
Adding AI to iPaaS Creates the Enterprise Orchestration Platform (EOP)
iPaaS technology keeps dramatically evolving in terms of both functional and non-functional capabilities thanks to the infusion of AI technologies aimed at:
- Shortening developers’ learning curve,
- Increasing their productivity,
- Improving the platform quality of service (QoS) and operational functionality,
- Strengthening its security and governance capabilities.
However, you should not consider AI-enabled iPaaS as merely an “improved iPaaS”, but a much more powerful platform that makes humans, systems, AI agents, devices and robots work together by dynamically orchestrating a variety of modular capabilities. As such it can support innovative scenarios, including, but not limited to:
- Pervasive process automation (a.k.a., hyper-automation), that is, a strategy that aims at drastically reducing manual work by automating as many business processes and tasks as possible with the goal of significantly improving operational efficiency.
- Composable enterprise, an increasingly popular paradigm focused on boosting business agility by “composing” new intelligent applications and processes out of a catalog of readily available, reusable, independent, loosely coupled, and AI-enabled building blocks.
- Agentic dynamic process orchestration, which leverages AI agent technology to automate non-deterministic, fluid and fuzzy business processes
For this reason, we refer to it as the Enterprise Orchestration Platform (EOP).
- Enterprise” refers to EOP support for even the most demanding QoS, security and governance requirements.
- The “orchestration” term refers to this technology’s ability to “make humans, systems, AI agents, devices and robots work together” by dynamically orchestrating a variety of modular capabilities. The goal is to combine these capabilities in different ways to support a wide variety of business needs, and favor incremental, project-by-project adoption.
- The term “platform” indicates how an EOP is not meant to target a particular business need (for example, order-to-cash processes). You can use an EOP to implement support for a wide range of highly differentiated requirements across business teams and vertical sectors.
Understanding the Enterprise Orchestration Platform
Read our exclusive analyst report on EOP as the future of AI infused iPaaS, and see what it can do for you.
How to Prepare for the Future of EOP
The EOP is emerging as organizations’ enterprise automation and AI-enablement strategic technology cornerstone. No matter whether you are looking for an enterprise automation tool, for a pervasive process automation facilitator, for an enabler for your AI and AI agents initiatives, or for an application/process composition infrastructure, the cornerstone of your enterprise automation strategy will be an EOP.
You – as CIOs, IT Leaders or enterprise architects – should get ready for it by:
- Investing in an EOP to implement AI-enabled processes and to address classic enterprise automation challenges.
- Actively seeking opportunities for gradually replacing your legacy automation (e.g., BPM) and integration (e.g., ESB) platforms with a new EOP.
- Proactively pursuing the democratized delivery model by leveraging the EOP low-code, AI assisted capabilities and distributed governance functionality as key technology enablers.
- Brainstorming with business leaders about how infusing AI in their business processes can deliver additional business value.
- Identifying opportunities to experiment with advanced scenarios, such as pervasive process automation, composition and agentic orchestration.
