The secrets of effective system integration architecture

Have you ever traveled across the country and thought to yourself – wow, these roads are really bad? In addition to the actual quality of roads connecting different cities, their placement and how they direct traffic matter a lot. It’s the same with system integration architecture.

Well-designed system integration architecture connects systems or apps and ensures seamless communication between them. The end goal? Users enjoy centralized workflows. They can immediately access the data they need, and they don’t have to chase information across disparate systems. It’s all in one place. 

The question is – how do you get there?

The key is taking the time to plan

If we were to name one thing necessary for an effective system integration architecture, it would be a solid, well-articulated plan. More often than not, the planning stage is rushed, which impacts the success probability of the actual design, implementation, testing, and optimization phases. Measure twice and cut once.

It all starts with setting clear objectives. When defining the objectives, you should always consider the broader business goals and requirements. Knowing why you’re building the system integration architecture makes it much easier to figure out the “how” part of the equation. That includes everything from system design and performance expectations to resources and integrated workflows.

One thing that you should never compromise on is modularity and scalability. You need to break down the integration architecture into smaller, reusable components. This gives you the freedom and flexibility to test and develop specific functions on individual modules independently. The greatest benefit is reflected in the fact that you’ll be able to update or replace certain system components without risking any downtime. 

Lastly, it’s vital to think through different industry-standard protocols and technology options. There are dozens of different paths you can take when creating a system integration architecture. You need to be careful and choose the right one to meet project requirements. The goal is to minimize integration complexity and decrease future risks. This is achieved through interoperability and compatibility. The tricky part here is to achieve the balance between relying on trustworthy standards and embracing new technologies. That’s where external tech expertise can be a smart investment because it pays off in the long run (and big time). 

For enterprises in particular, security is non-negotiable

A good system integration architecture ensures all communication lines between integrated systems are secured through encryption and authentication mechanisms (e.g., network communication protocols such as SSL/TLS, IPsec, or VPNs). During the development process, your team of experts needs to follow secure coding practices and run security reviews – especially for APIs and custom code development.

Enterprise-level companies need to pay close attention to data privacy and compliance. Some examples include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the US healthcare industry, and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) in the payment card industry. All of these standards impose strict requirements for how businesses are supposed to collect process, store, and transmit data.

Bearing that in mind, you must ensure your system integration architecture has mechanisms to adhere to these security regulations. In a nutshell, your data has to be secure – both at rest and when in transit.

Enterprise companies face an additional challenge because of the complexity of their internal organizational structure. For example, sensitive financial data should not be accessed by every employee in the hierarchy. That is where identity and access control come into play. Depending on the user role and permissions, you can deploy different access levels within your organization.

Last but not least, you need an effective threat detection system. It should continuously monitor network traffic, user activity, and system logs to detect potential threats in a timely manner. That’s how you’ll protect your business operations.

A good system integration architecture is continuously improved  

Integration solutions are living systems that need continuous care and monitoring. To make sure your architecture is doing what it’s supposed to, you have to implement governance processes and monitoring tools.

This is how you’ll stay proactive in identifying potential issues, optimize performance, and minimize downtime. Continuous improvement is key to making sure end users get access to the data they need at all times. That’s why establishing feedback loops matters. To ensure high performance, you should continuously monitor system performance metrics and gather quantitative and qualitative feedback from users.

The best way to gather feedback is through establishing robust feedback loops. That means you have a set cadence for collecting feedback (e.g. weekly surveys or user interviews), that you have a set SOP for submitting bug or support tickets, and that you closely monitor user analytics as well. For example, if you see very few people logging in and using the new system integration, the adoption rate is likely too low. Employees are probably finding a workaround, and they feel resistant to using the integration. That’s an important signal to focus more on change management. 

With feedback loops, you are setting the foundation for agile development practices. Through an iterative process, developers work on incremental improvements. This is how you ensure that the system integration architecture always aligns with user needs (and user needs continuously evolve; that’s the nature of every business). Agile is all about rapid feedback, experimentation, continuous improvement, and innovation. That’s how you create long-lasting value continuously. 

Finally, there’s automation. Every modern system integration architecture relies on DevOps principles to automate repetitive tasks for greater efficiency and for minimizing the margin for error. For example, deploying updates and provisioning infrastructure shouldn’t be manual.

Different infrastructure as code (IaC) tools allow you to manage configurations programmatically. Likewise, continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines help you automate the testing, integration, and deployment of code changes.

Embrace robust testing and validation

What makes system integration architecture a good one? At a minimum, it’s these three things: high performance, uncompromisable security, and great reliability. To ensure quality standards are met, you need to test a lot and validate that it meets functional and non-functional requirements. 

End-to-end testing is essential to validate the entire integration workflow and it is done through real-life scenario simulations. The value of it lies in its power to uncover any blind spots you might have and issues in communication between different systems. Check the table below for necessary system integration architecture tests.

System integration architecture should map and not adapt existing business processes

Users of a certain system are used to working in a specific way. When creating a system integration, you introduce complexity by connecting multiple systems. This is why it’s essential to understand how users currently work with existing systems and map their existing processes. The end goal should be to make it as simple as possible for them to start using the new system. In other words, aim for a high adoption rate – as fast as possible.

It is paramount to keep users at the center of system integration architecture and ensure it meets their needs, preferences, and workflows. Ultimately, creating something that’s a joy to use and makes their lives easier is how you’ll make the first step to ensuring reasonable adoption rates. The design needs to be user-centric, and your focus should be on simplifying existing processes.

Every system integration architecture should boost productivity. When all data is easily accessible and centralized, it’s much easier to manipulate it and finish work faster. If you can automate mundane tasks, you’re on the right track to increasing not only your output but also employee satisfaction.

This creates fertile ground for innovation. When people get their time back, they can redirect their attention to brainstorming and creativity. Innovation cannot happen without an efficient system integration architecture because your people get bogged down by cumbersome processes. They don’t have the time or energy to think outside the box.

From a financial perspective, if you design your system integration architecture while always considering the end user, you can expect reduced training costs. The new system's familiarity and mild learning curve will boost the speed of adoption. 

Let experts help you with designing the best system integration architecture

We all know that how you work can tremendously impact the quality of your work. Instead of wasting your time figuring out the best way to solve the problem of siloed work, why don’t you ask for expert advice?

At Vega IT, we’re more than happy to explore if we’d be the right fit for your business use case and consult you on the best path forward. When you have an external expert you can trust, it genuinely feels like an extension of your in-house team. That’s our goal–to help you do your best work by covering the integration part of the puzzle. Get in touch with us today, we’re always happy to hear from you.