Best Practices for System Integration: Key Techniques

Similar to human beings, systems also require social interaction; they seldom function in isolation. Integration and collaborations play a vital role in their operation. In this blog we’ll discuss smart integration techniques and best practices to make these collaborations smooth and efficient.

There are several tools & technologies available for integration, few common ones are mentioned below.

WCF Services
Web APIs
Web Services
Azure Logic Apps
Azure Service Bus (Enterprise messaging, on publisher/subscriber pattern)
Azure Functions (A serverless approach)
SSIS Packages
Scribe
Kingsway Soft

Selecting the right integration approach depends on factors like complexity, data volume, real-time requirements, and system compatibility.

Integration Design Best Practices:

The Technical Design Overview must encompass the following key aspects:

Integration Objective: Clearly define the purpose of integration to provide a comprehensive context for the entire design process.
High-Level Requirements: Articulate high-level requirements to lay the foundation for a comprehensive understanding of the integration scope.
Architecture: Develop a high-level solution architecture that encompasses an architecture diagram, offering a visual representation of the overall design. As and Enterprise Architect you need to plan Architecture which does not only resolves current problems but should be expandable for future organizations need.
Assess Integration complexity: Assess the complexity of the integration tasks. You can determine the complexity by asking below questions.
- Number of systems needs to be integrated
- What will be the frequency of Integration with each of these connecting system
- Are you dealing with simple data transfers or more complex workflows
- Direction of Integration like unidirectional or bi-directional
- What is the expected complexity of the data transformations
- How will master data will be synched up between systems
- Where will you keep master data mapping and how will you make sure that changes to the master data is synched up across system.
- Do you need Infra and network related changes for Integrations
- Understand the volume and frequency of the Integration
Hosting Environments: Identify the appropriate hosting environments to ensure seamless service deployment.
Communication Ports/VPN Tunnels: Determine the communication port where the service will be hosted, ensuring efficient data transfer. Pay special attention when the Integration hybrid platform( between on-premise to cloud or vice-versa).
Versioning: Implement versioning for APIs to ensure backward compatibility when making changes, so the service is able to accommodate the new changes and the consumer can decide to make relevant calls.
Deployment Strategy: Detail the deployment strategy, including steps to be taken before and after deployment. Cover configuration changes and post-deployment procedures.
Method-Specific Design: Devote a section to each Web Method, elucidating its unique and establish clear requirements and map them into a Requirement Traceability Matrix. Visualizing the process flow using swim lanes or sequence diagrams helps depict system interactions. Outlining input/output parameters or responses ensures clarity regarding expected outcomes
Data Model: Design the data model which has to be exchange over Integration
Security: There are 2 key aspects of security, Authentication & Authorization, plan how your services will be secure.
Applicable Data Exchange: Apply suitable filters to transmit only eligible data over the network.
Data types, Sizes & Transformations: While deigning and developing Integrations pay special attention to data types, size and transformation, you can create a mapping sheet to design this.
Pause/Resume feature: Integration sometimes needs to be paused due to business or Technical reasons. Implement a robust pause and resume capability for better resilience.
Error Handling & Retry Mechanism: Layout the design for re-try mechanism, plan for a generic code for exception handling & re-try mechanism.
Configurable Logging Mechanism: It is advisable to design the Logging mechanism in such a way that it does not impact the performance and you are in control when it comes to switch on/off logging.
Pagination: Optimize Integration performance by implementing pagination.
Certificates: To avoid the common problem of dealing with expired SSL certificates, it’s essential to set up reminders for certificate expiry dates. This proactive approach can save time and prevent potential issues related to expired certificates.
Single point of failure: Ensure that your Design Architecture eliminates any single points of failure by scaling out endpoints.
Volumes expectations: Clearly specify the design’s capacity for handling volumes.
Pro-active Service Monitoring: Establish a vigilant monitoring system for hosted services to promptly detect downtime. Ensure this system facilitates regular analysis and evaluation of integration service performance and efficiency.
Reporting: Develop a robust reporting mechanism to consistently monitor the performance of the hosted integration services.