Examine your iPaaS Provider with this Checklist

How do you determine the condition of the iPaaS providers you have now – or the ones you are considering? Use our quick and easy checklist!

David Overos David Overos

Data is the new value-creator in countless organizations.  In fact, it’s the competitive edge being used by industry leaders around the globe to differentiate their businesses. 

Think Amazon.  Think Google.  Think Netflix.  Data drives their businesses, makes them customer-focused and has helped them disrupt markets.  But an organization cannot live on data alone.

Data demands integration – to break it out of silos and turn it into a valuable business asset. Integration must be an integral part of your digital business strategy.

You need multi-cloud infrastructures and a multi-function integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to handle the new complexities of highly competitive digital environments.  This means cloud-first architecture.

But leading analysts predict that up to 75% of iPaaS vendors will not survive past 2023. So how do you determine the condition of the providers you have now – or the ones you are considering?

There is a way: Use this quick and easy checklist to assess critical iPaaS capabilities and validate the health of your iPaaS provider.

  1. Is your iPaaS provider established, profitable and investing in integration technology via new releases, new capabilities and/or acquisitions?

Don’t make your future as uncertain as your iPaaS providers’ is. The race to the cloud has created a flurry of iPaaS providers that want to lock you in, so THEY can cash in. Most aren’t profitable, making their futures look bleak.

  1. Are most of your iPaaS provider’s customers only in the SMB space?

If you’re a large enterprise you want an experienced, enterprise-grade iPaaS provider.  But most iPaaS providers only have knowledge in the SMB space and are not equipped to handle the complex demands of enterprise-class integrations.

  1. Does your iPaaS provider offer tools for both IT – and the business?

iPaaS vendors evolved from solving departmental needs, like integrating marketing databases with Salesforce.  They lack experience in solving enterprise-wide problems and have never built a platform for both business and IT.

  1. Does your iPaaS provider offer hybrid integration – for when you are ready for it?

Some applications and systems will stay on-premises for the foreseeable future. As a result, iPaaS vendors must support hybrid integration platform (HIP) use cases where on-premises applications are integrated with newer cloud apps. 

  1. Does your iPaaS vendor support Microservices and Devops – or do they have a one-size-fits-all (OSFA) approach?

Most iPaaS vendors provide this approach to integration, thus all applications scale together — in the same way.  But the reality is – they don’t.  Microservices architectures aren’t supported in this approach, and neither are the DevOps needs of today’s integration developers.

  1. Is full lifecycle API management offered by your iPaaS provider?

Most iPaaS vendors lack complete API management capabilities – like a developer’s portal, API gateway and API lifecycle management. 

  1. Is B2B integration supported by your provider’s iPaaS offering?

Most iPaaS providers don’t touch B2B.   As companies build digital ecosystems, B2B integration becomes even more essential. Your ecosystem has grown and you now have more trading partners, customers, manufacturers and partners than ever before. 

  1. Are IoT-related integrations and digital capabilities strong at your iPaaS provider, with a clearly defined roadmap?

The Internet of Things is the ultimate game-changer.  Most iPaaS vendors lack the IoT capabilities to make a meaningful impact on your business strategy and remain point solutions that lack direction and a future.

What’s your score? 

If you answered NO to even one of these questions – your provider failed.  But there is hope.  The solution is multi-function iPaaS from Software AG.

Our vision of iPaas is unique.  Multi-function iPaaS deployments enable you to create low-code, high control development deployed across a multi-cloud infrastructure.  

See why Software AG is a recognized leader in The Forrester Wave™: Strategic iPaaS And Hybrid Integration Platforms, Q1 2019.