Experts Tout Informatica’s SaaS User Support, New API Capabilities

Four Ways to Solve Cloud Integration, for Better or Worse

This week, Informatica released an update to its cloud integration platform, Informatica Cloud Spring 2014. The big news here: Visual design that makes it easy for users to design integrations between their favorite SaaS apps.

The cloud-to-cloud apps can run 100 percent in the cloud, which means fewer integration jobs in the queue for IT. Integration that is cloud-to-on-premise can run either on-premise, across the cloud or on some sort of hybrid situation.

Cloud integration continues to be a growing pain point for organizations. Information Week’s 2013 State of Cloud Computing survey found that one-third of respondents wouldn’t even try cloud integration, so it’s a safe bet you’ll hear more about that this year.

The Informatica Cloud Winter 2013 release also focused on this problem by offering pre-configured integration flows, so this makes sense as a next step.

The release also includes a new set of functionalities called Vibe Integration Packages, which Alex Bakker of IT consultancy and research firm Saugatuck highlights in a recent Information Management column:

’What Saugatuck finds intriguing is how these packages add to IT organizations’ ability to expose individual applications and data flows via Informatica’s APIs. We see this going a long way toward more efficiently enabling and supporting new or expanded business cases, enabling developers to more readily deliver business capabilities, and enabling controllable access partners, regulators, or other entities that may need access to specific data connections.’

The Spring 2014 release also includes advances to real-time hybrid application integration, reports the website IT-TNA.

Webinars

“Power Trio: APIs, Cloud Platforms, Lifecycle Management,” featuring Forrest Research VP & Principal Analyst John Rymer and WSO2 Co-founder and CTO Paul Fremantle, at 9 a.m. PDT, March 13. This webinar is for IT professionals and will explain how the “power trio” can help you evolve toward continuous integration and DevOps.

“EDI Integration: Harmonize your B2B Processes,” at 10 a.m. PDT, March 13. Even though you seldom hear about the EDI standard, it’s still a major issue for B2B companies. Last year, integration vendor Jitterbit partnered with B2B company Complete EDI to offer Jitterbit EDI, a wizard-based EDI integration tool. The two vendors are offering a free webinar to discuss how EDI integration can be used to eliminate errors and increase cash flow.