Cloud Computing

The integration challenges of cloud computing
By Zulfiqar Rajper

A core issue that arises as we toss our data out to the clouds is the fact that
at some point we need to sync that data with our existing "traditional"
on-premise systems. This fact is often lost on those deploying cloud computing
tools until they attempt to drive business processes between cloud computing and
on-premise resources. Then, the lack of integration becomes a huge problem.
I believe that integration is so important that I wrote a book about it [1] way
back in the Stone Age. While the focus then was on the enterprises and
intra-enterprise integration, we're now seeing integration in a new cloudy
light, with new players and new approaches, but with many of the same old
problems.
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You have to consider the fundamentals of integration first, including the
ability to connect with both source and target systems, such as Salesforce.com
and SAP, or Amazon EC2 and Oracle, and then how to extract data from the source
system, mediate the semantics and technical differences, and publish the data to
the target.
Of course, although cloud-to-enterprise integration is the typical pattern,
we're now seeing cloud-to-cloud integration as well, plus very complex
integration paths that can span dozens of on-premise and/or cloud
computing-based systems. These patterns of integration are going to become more
complex as cloud computing becomes more pervasive.
There are a few ways to address this integration need, including software-based
on-premise integration tools, on-premise appliance-based integration tools, and
the cloud-delivered integration tools.
Software-based on-premise integration tools. This set includes the technology I
created in the late... [continues]

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