With over 20 years working in the middleware and integration space, delivering complex and scalable solutions across multiple industries, as an Enterprise Architect, I have seen firsthand the challenges companies face in adapting to rapid technological change. Monolithic applications and dogmatic approaches to integration architecture only exaggerate the challenges.
The traditional approach of building monolithic applications—self-contained systems with tightly coupled data, logic, and UI—once made sense for consistency and long-term planning. But as business needs accelerate and digital transformation becomes imperative, these monoliths and the legacy tools that were built for them become shackles.
So, how do you break free? The answer lies in composable architecture—a modern approach that leverages orchestration, best-of-breed solutions, and AI to create flexible, future-proof systems.
From Monoliths to Microservices and Composability
The Monolithic Past
Monolithic architectures were designed to solve data and process inconsistencies and minimize integration challenges. Classic examples include early ERP systems and e-commerce platforms, where vendors kept adding more features into a single, massive application. While this approach worked for long-term stability, it made change slow and expensive.
| A monolith is a software application where all components—such as user interface, business logic, and data access—are self-contained and run as one unit. Changes or scaling require updating the entire system, making it less flexible compared to modular or microservices architectures. They are notoriously slow and expensive to build, test, deploy, and maintain, hampering innovation and time to value. |
The Agility Challenge
As technology and business needs evolved—especially during events like COVID-19—organizations realized their monolithic systems couldn’t keep up with the pace of change. The inability to quickly digitize or integrate new technologies became a major bottleneck.
The Best-of-Breed Shift
Today, organizations are moving towards a best-of-breed model, powered by SaaS and mobile applications that are hyper-specialized. Instead of one giant ERP, you now have a core financial system surrounded by specialized apps for HR, recruiting, procurement, and more.
But this introduces a new challenge: How do you connect and orchestrate all these specialized systems quickly and efficiently so that the innovation and agility from getting the latest tech off the shelf is not hindered by the traditionally lengthy cycles to integrate that tech?
The Connectivity Fabric & Orchestration
To unlock the benefits of composability, you need a connectivity fabric—a way to seamlessly connect disparate systems at unprecedented speed. But technology alone isn’t enough; organizations must also shift their mindset from “build to last” to “build to change.”
Buy and Compose
According to Gartner, the industry is moving from a “buy vs. build” mentality to a “buy and compose” approach. This means assembling solutions from modular components, rather than relying on a single vendor or custom-built monolith.
“Building composable applications requires an architecture that enables agility, flexibility, integration and modularity. A composable application architecture of apps, APIs and services provides software architects and engineers with the optimal approach to meet those needs.”
Brad Dayley, Gartner, 2025
What Makes a Composable Architecture?
A truly composable architecture is more than just APIs or microservices. It’s about:
- Orchestration: The ability to combine APIs, microservices, and packaged capabilities into higher-value business services.
- Connectivity: A fabric that connects anything, anywhere—APIs, events, batch processes, file integrations, and more.
- AI Integration: Bringing AI-powered capabilities (like agents and LLMs) into the same ecosystem for smarter automation and orchestration.
- Future-Proofing: Ensuring your platform can adapt to new technologies and reuse existing investments.
Key Building Blocks of Composable Architecture
| Layer | Purpose |
| Connectivity Fabric | Connects all systems (APIs, events, files, etc.) |
| Orchestration Engine | Orchestrates APIs, processes, data, and applications |
| AI Strategy | Integrates AI agents, LLMs, and automation into business processes |
Modernization
General Patterns Across Enterprises
Many large enterprises are decomposing monolithic business applications e.g. ERP systems (like SAP) into a composable core with satellite best-of-breed apps for HR, procurement, inventory, etc.
AI & Automation
Companies are integrating AI agents, LLMs, and RPA into their composable platforms for smarter, more adaptive business processes.
Modern API Management Principles
To support composability, your API platform should have:
- Cloud-Native Infrastructure: For speed and scalability with low operational overhead
- End-to-End API Lifecycle: Unified platform–lower complexity in design, implementation, and management.
- Agnostic Pattern Support: Synchronous, asynchronous, event-based, and batch APIs.
- Usability: Enables generalists, not just specialists, to build and manage integrations.
- Future-Proof & AI-Readiness: Adaptable architecture that can evolve to support new tech without major rewrites.
- Federation: Aggregates multiple API gateways into a single pane of glass consolidating.
Explore Workato’s Enterprise Orchestration Platform for API Management, Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), Data Pipelines, Event Streams, Process Automation, AI Agents, and more.
Real-World Example: Composability in Banking
Recently, at API Days I presented this story alongside Steve Scott, Founder at API People where he demonstrated how composable architecture is transforming community banks and credit unions.
Based on his many years experience in the industry, he discussed two key challenges his clients face:
- Legacy Infrastructure: Most banks run on mainframe systems from the 1980s and 90s, making integration and innovation difficult.
- Point-to-Point Pain: Without a composable approach, banks end up with fragmented, siloed systems and manual processes.
Since partnering closely with Workato, Steve shared a terrific example of a composable solution his firm developed for companies in Financial Services. By using Workato’s connector SDK, API People built connectors for core banking systems marking an inflexible, notoriously hard to connect legacy technology straightforward to connect across any stack with API-accessible services.This abstraction layer allows banks to easily add new vendors, replace point-to-point connections, and gain transparency into integrations.
With Workato, banks can orchestrate APIs, handle events, leverage AI, and automate processes—all in one, agile, secure, and unified platform.
If you’re looking to bring this kind of agility and modernization to your institution, explore API People’s purpose-built marketplace connectors for Jack Henry. Designed with flexibility and speed in mind, our solutions help clients accelerate innovation and connectivity to core banking systems.
Why Workato for a Composable Architecture?
Workato’s platform embodies the principles of composable architecture:
- Unified Experience: Build, govern, and secure integrations and automations for your data, processes, applications, experiences, and AI agents in a single, serverless IDE.
- Generalist Empowerment: Enable your teams to build across stacks, not just specialize in one. Security, compliance and governance guardrails are built-in.
- Recognition: Named a Leader and the Furthest in Vision in Gartner’s iPaaS Magic Quadrant.
Conclusion
Composable architecture is the key to agility, innovation, and future-proofing your business. By embracing orchestration, connectivity, and AI, you can break free from monolithic constraints and build systems that evolve with your needs.
Explore the Workato Platform to learn how composability can transform your organization.
