Businesses are complex affairs – and the bigger they get, the more complex they grow.
There are many thickets of complexities for business leaders to battle through. But one of the most overwhelming is the sense that it's hard for systems to communicate in a multi-systems world.
Take a simple example. A customer places an order, and that information needs to reach your warehouse, inventory and accounts systems.
Without integration, someone may have to manually move that data between systems. Multiply that across hundreds of orders, and a small inconvenience quickly becomes a drain on time, accuracy and efficiency.
The answer to this conundrum is system integration tools. These let systems speak to one another – and they future-proof your systems, too, so you're free to scale and adapt your infrastructure.
Not all system integrations take the same form, however. There are at least four different kinds:
point-to-point, hub-to-spoke, vertical integration and horizontal integration.
Common system integration approaches
1. Point-to-point integration
Point-to-point integration, commonly shortened to P2P, involves directly connecting two pieces of software or two databases. Once connected, they can exchange data without an intermediary.
It's this direct connection that characterises P2P. Instead of passing through a central hub, A speaks to B and B can reply.
P2P integration commonly takes the form of custom coding or application programming interfaces (APIs).
Pros and cons
The main benefit of P2P system integration is its simplicity. It's the fastest and cheapest way to get two applications to talk.
In the early stages of a business's journey, this can be invaluable. It allows you to integrate an eCommerce store, say, and an inventory system without breaking the bank or breaking your mind with complex code.
And because there's no go-between, data moves almost instantaneously between the two endpoints.
The disadvantages begin when you start to pile up systems. If you had 10 systems that needed connecting, you'd have to build 45 unique connections. This leads to what developers call "spaghetti integration" – messy and hard to unpick.
The other disadvantage is that updating or changing the API of one application will often break the connection with the other.
2. Hub-and-spoke integration
Whereas P2P integrations speak to one another, hub-and-spoke involves multiple apps (spokes) connecting to a central hub.
The hub acts as a go-between or interpreter. It handles all the translation, routing and validation needed to let data pass from A to B.
Pros and cons
P2P is simple at the start. But when your systems grow in complexity, you need to build individual pipelines between every application. With hub-and-spoke integration, by contrast, each application needs just one pipeline to the hub.
This has advantages for scalability, too. If you want to add or replace a system, you simply connect the new system to the hub with no need to update the other systems.
The final advantage is that the hub serves as a single point for troubleshooting and auditing. In a complex business environment, this simplification can be invaluable.
3. Vertical integration
In the business world, "silo" is often a dirty word. But in the case of vertical integration, it's the heart of the matter.
Vertical integration in system integration involves connecting different software and hardware as a single silo. It manages business processes from end-to-end (website 👉 sales 👉 inventory, for example) rather than laterally.
Pros and cons
The first main benefit of vertical integration is that the one-to-one connection ensures high reliability, faster processing and seamless data translation.
The second is that it allows companies to control the whole ecosystem – what's known as "single-vendor control".
On the other hand, vertical integration reduces flexibility. If you want to modify one part of the stack, you run the risk of severing another connection. In this respect, it's a far more challenging kind of data integration than hub-and-spoke.
4. Horizontal integration
Horizontal integration is like a chain of subsystems, applications and databases. The aim is to link them horizontally so they can speak to one another.
They're typically built on a central communication layer (or "interface") – often an enterprise service bus (ESB). This allows data and workflows to be accessed and used by organisation-wide tools.
Pros and cons
Horizontally integrated systems can be highly agile, and the individual systems remain independent. Subsystems can be updated or replaced without any ill effects on the rest of the network.
On top of this, cross-departmental data is compiled seamlessly into a single source of truth. This speeds up workflows and ensures that inventory, sales, logistics and other departments can communicate quickly and clearly.
The main drawback of horizontal integration is that it's built on a single point of failure. If the EBS or another interface layer suffers an outage, everything else can slow down or stop altogether.
What are the benefits of system integration for your business?
There are two main benefits of system integration in a business context.
The first is that it does what it says on the tin. Systems will be able to speak to each other without bottlenecks or translation problems.
Secondly, your systems are future-proofed. So, if you want to replace or update one part of the system, you don't need to worry about business continuity.
How we can help
At Minster WMS, we offer a highly flexible hub-and-spoke
system integration solution.
IntaData allows you to integrate your systems quickly, reliably and at a fraction of the cost of a traditional integration project. And best of all, by managing your integrations from a central console, you can protect business continuity when it's time to update, scale or change course.
Want to see how IntaData could work for you?
Book a demo with our UK experts today.
