Using both cloud services and on-premise IT needs integration that may not be very simple to do.  First, you would need to look at two very different environments and you would need to come up with solutions to help address your integration needs.  You can come up with a system to help you integrate your cloud services and on-premise systems, but it could be very costly to use such a system and this might often lead to wasted employee time spent in maintenance and monitoring.

Licensing can be very expensive

Data integration can be very costly too.  Gartner estimates that software licensing for data integration alone could run up to $500,000 and maintaining your systems could run up to $100,000 a year.

And this is the reason why cloud integration is a much preferred route by companies compared to on-premise integration middleware.  Jiten Patil, the principal cloud expert at Persistent Systems, says that in this age of the cloud, cloud integration platforms are increasingly being used for integrating devices. On-premise systems, cloud applications, social and hybrid solutions work together seamlessly.  This is through the use of cloud-based self-service and multitenant applications.

Less hassle in coding

Traditional middleware for data integration is getting lost in the dust left by companies who are scrambling to get into the cloud.  Businesses realize that they are freeing up valuable IT hours by making sure that everything works without them spending time writing code or scripts for manual integration, nor do they have to maintain it.  Then you can easily get all your data and information up and running in no time.

Traditional middleware is not flexible

Compare that to traditional middleware that takes a lot of time of implementation and needs a lot of scripting and coding hours, not to mention maintenance hours, to pull off.  What’s more, traditional middleware is not that flexible.  Because manual scripting is needed for each and every project that you may have, you cannot possibly know who will be using that data now or in the future.  Nor can you predict where your new data sources would come from and your current codes and scripts might not be able to handle new data sources when they come in.

Cloud-based integration services allow you to identify the data sources that you would need and even in the future so that you can get great integration architecture for your efforts.

The role of master data management

As with every cloud initiative, businesses are antsy about their data being put into the cloud.  And this is the reason why master data management is very important.  Businesses would need to figure out which of their data may be put onto the cloud and which ones should stay where they are.

More than that, having a master data management in place would make sure that you have a master copy of all the data that you have and not just work with separate data sets.   It would ensure that you are working with a complete set of data.  It could also help you guarantee that all the data in the future are gathered right and safeguard the data’s trustworthiness.