System integration platforms help to reduce the degree of coupling of systems within an application landscape. While integration architecturessuch as an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) have been developed for this purpose, modern integration platforms go far beyond the capabilities of an ESB.

Integration needs a place

Since integration logic should not reside in the systems to be integrated (peer-to-peer), integration needs its own location. However, this should not necessarily be connected to a central technical infrastructure as in the case of an ESB. Instead, flexibility is required. This can be achieved via a microservice-oriented approach. Here, the integration logic is viewed in a focused manner and kept separate from the systems to be integrated. This decouples the systems and makes new development, operations and business models possible. Further decoupling occurs when the most suitable integration technology can be freely and transparently selected for each system involved.

Newer developments, such as IKOR's own System Integration Platform (SIP), employ a virtual hub architecture and thus consistently follow the path of maximum flexibility for business and technical integrations. What is important here is the uniform handling of security and operational aspects, which are not the focus of integration frameworks. Therefore, such (open source) frameworks are an important basis, but do not in themselves represent an integration platform.