Cloud App Integration .com

As convenient as cloud computing can be, it’s important to remember that the convenience comes from passing on difficulties to someone outside your organization. Problems arise when their difficulty–say, trouble integrating with another third party provider you’ve enlisted–has a direct effect on how you do business. News from today suggests you can prevent these issues such by handling cloud integration early and often.

In a blog post today about cloud silos and integration, David Linthicum advocates doing integration in a step-by-step manner as a cloud-based system is built instead of waiting until after the pieces are in place. Failing to integrate in an iterative way will lead to silos. Siloed systems in a cloud computing environment, Linthicum says, can have worse consequences than siloed sytems on premise.

For in-the-trenches proof of the importance of early integration, consider New Zealand-based nonprofit St. John, whose SaaS CRM integration is profiled as part of a feature article on cloud implementation. St. John IT direct Peter McDowall is quoted in the story as saying, “We focused on integration upfront, but we could have put even more emphasis on it.” McDowall’s company combined Salesforce CRM with existing on-premise software. The organization used Pervasive for cloud data migration.

It may seem like an obvious notion, but taking an iterative approach to integration is not always done. And, given that many systems have been in place for years, it may not always be possible. But as more companies transition to the cloud, the opportunity exists—an opportunity that should be taken—for step-wise integration to occur as new systems are built out.