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What Is Oracle Integration Cloud?
Oracle Integration Cloud, also known as OIC, is a cloud-based integration product designed to link on-site software with enterprise software from third parties or cloud products in real-time using cutting-edge security measures for optimal protection of organizations.
OIC can deliver unparalleled levels of synchronization that increase organizational efficiency significantly.
What Are The Critical Features Of OIC?
Oracle Integration Cloud is a cloud-based service that integrates all digital aspects within a company, including ERP software.
As expected, this product features many key benefits; here are just a few highlights:
Integration Of Saas And On-Premises
SaaS (Software as a Service) allows individuals and companies to download and manage software applications over the Internet instead of installing and maintaining them, freeing users to focus on using rather than working.
OIC's over 50 adapters enable seamless connectivity for thousands of SaaS applications and on-premise programs.
Data Stream Analysis
OIC uses stream analytics instead of batch processing to collect real-time data from multiple sources, enabling organizations to respond faster to events while providing continuous, up-to-date information to operations teams.
Simplified Automatic Design
OIC strives to simplify life for every member of your organization by offering them access to services when and where needed, no matter when or on what device.
With its intuitive design focused on simple visuals and minimal code, users can work anywhere without limit.
Easy Setup
Oracle Integration Cloud dashboards can be implemented instantly without the need for setup, editing or coding - the platform provides all the resources you'll need to integrate its use within your business operations seamlessly.
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Benefits Of Oracle Integration Cloud
OIC has many advantages over other integration tools. Some of its benefits include:
- Simple User Interface: OIC's user interface (UI) is more user-friendly and straightforward than others; eliminating manual processes in favor of more automated processes, you select your integration flow and program/s you would like integrated; alternatively, you could let OIC's AI take care of this work automatically for you!
- Security at the cutting edge: Oracle Integration Cloud offers multiple security measures, from OS protection and virtualization layer protection to tenant isolation if you wish to dedicate additional resources toward one user or customer.
- All-in-one design: OIC should serve as your one-stop solution for integration needs. Everything should be possible from one central platform, from app integration and visual interface development to process monitoring and overall business process tracking.
Oracle Integration Cloud has long been considered a market leader in integration solutions, providing powerful yet straightforward integration tools that eliminate complex tasks without needing expert knowledge on hand.
Boasting top-tier security measures and being capable of unifying all aspects of business activities into real-time monitoring and analysis capabilities - these elements all combine for an economical yet efficient integration platform solution.
What Is A Legacy System?
Even as SaaS adoption surges, many organizations rely on legacy systems for crucial business processes.
Even if you use legacy systems daily, like an ERP or database containing important client or employee details.
How can one recognize legacy systems, their disadvantages, and why integrating legacy applications with modern apps is often the best management approach?
This page addresses these concerns head-on. By doing so, you'll be able to identify legacy systems within your organization and determine how quickly--and whether--they fit into the rest of your technology stack.
What Does A Legacy System Mean?
Legacy systems can be defined as existing in an organization for some time and remaining relatively unchanged, without web-based interface or technology advances to integrate other plans, typically located on-prem.
Legacy systems are used across various industries such as finance, retailing, government and manufacturing.
Note that the technical capabilities of legacy systems can differ widely; some legacy systems offer APIs while others do not.
Let us now examine some of the drawbacks associated with legacy systems.
Three Options For Legacy Modernization
Legacy systems have proven themselves reliable over many decades; over time, they became integrated with more processes and procedures as more depended on them for connectivity or support.
Once upon a time, many IT administrators took an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" stance. Still, as more aging mainframes and cores became part of IT infrastructures worldwide, that position morphed to "if I repair it it will break ''.
Hard truths reveal themselves quickly: legacy systems cannot adapt or adapt to evolving technologies or concepts like edge computing or intelligent automation, even if they still function usually.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to modernizing legacy technologies; no agreement exists regarding these choices either.
But here at CTI, we have simplified legacy modernization by breaking it down into its three core components.
Analysts generally concur there are multiple approaches for modernizing legacy software; each method needs careful evaluation before being chosen as one path or the other for modernization.
When choosing between them, decisions often depend on time, cost and risk considerations as the top criteria in any decision tree.
1. Replace The Legacy System
Your company might decide to switch systems completely. While this "rip and replace" approach might seem disruptive initially, particularly if your organization is already experiencing significant organizational or technological transformation.
You have limited capacity for further change management, but the results could prove advantageous.
TechTarget makes this point clear: though the expense associated with replacing legacy systems may seem prohibitively costly, it could be justified in certain circumstances.
A prime candidate for replacing outdated software would be any that no longer works effectively and is hindering business productivity.
Have your business goals changed since implementing your system, yet realistic updates cannot support its new direction? It might be time for something different.
2. Upgrade The Legacy System.
Your legacy application might still perform the core functionality. In such a situation, replacement may not be necessary.
Your legacy software might also make data sharing and productivity gains harder to accomplish, hindering its ability to meet contemporary business requirements.
Instead, consider modernizing it by expanding its features - it may need integration built-in to allow easy sharing and productivity gains.
Integration between older systems and modern tech can be challenging. Expanding existing ones or employing low code automation solutions to automate processes can modernize legacy software without being replaced entirely.
Your employees will be more willing to pursue additional advancements once they experience the positive effects of such passages in their daily lives.
Extending legacy software offers several additional advantages. By successfully modernizing existing apps, modernization can spur further digitization efforts in the future.
As employees witness improved work lives due to Modernizing legacy applications, their motivation may increase to pursue different advancements.
Your IT team won't need to devote as much expertise and time to reactive maintenance of legacy systems; once these have been resolved, your organization may adopt a more entrepreneurial and growth-minded mentality.
Soft benefits may initially seem like optional add-ons; however, over time, they'll lay the groundwork for digitizing your business.
3. Migration Of Legacy Systems
Legacy migration may be your solution when changing key business processes urgently with existing software not supporting them or no longer offering the desired user experience.
Legacy migration could provide the ideal way forward.
Consider adopting this strategy when your legacy applications still function well but have outdated infrastructure under them.
Your IT team could reconstruct a "lift-and-shift" legacy migration using modern architecture.
Migration of legacy systems can improve performance and adaptability for employees who have become used to them, providing reliable yet flexible versions that give modern infrastructure access and scalability benefits.
Doing this allows your organization to maximize legacy software utilization while speeding up digitization processes.
The Disadvantages Of Legacy Systems
There are many, but we will focus on the most important.
- Your data privacy and protection systems could have been designed initially to comply with data standards that no longer exist or have become outdated, leaving them incapable of meeting both your own data protection needs, as well as those of clients, due to incompatibilities between it and newer and more advanced measures.
- Many legacy systems no longer receive support from their original vendor; as a result, security patches to address vulnerabilities are likely no longer offered by that supplier.
- Multiple real-life examples underline the significance of this issue. In 2015 alone, two cyber hacks of legacy government databases affected millions of Americans, leaving behind stolen social security numbers and residency records, among other types of data.
- Legacy applications can harm business continuity. As technology becomes more customized, so does its level of expertise required for proper usage. When employees who know how to operate these devices leave, this quickly becomes a source of concern among staff members who might otherwise use them - fearing that touching them might damage them further - leading to increasingly fragile systems when their vendors no longer support them.
- They do not use modern technologies such as machine learning and AI. This issue will only amplify as organizations become more invested and dependent on these technologies.
- Legacy systems often provide tremendous business value despite shortcomings (sometimes more than specific modern applications). Unfortunately, however, migration costs for legacy systems can often reach tens or hundreds of millions.
- If the following statements apply, legacy system integration could be essential to your current tech stack. Before we discuss why, let's first define legacy system integration.
Read More: Oracle Integration Cloud: Configuring and Customizing Integrations
What Is Legacy System Integration?
Integration refers to connecting legacy and modern cloud apps using APIs, database connectors or files depending on the capability within their legacy systems.
Legacy systems used by businesses for day-to-day operations will remain. Simply replacing an outdated IT platform with something modern could pose increased business risks; various factors exist here.
The 2020 State of Ecosystem and Application Integration Report shows that while organizations continue spending time and money to maintain existing systems, 47% report an increasing need to integrate cloud applications to meet business requirements like ERP legacy systems such as Sage CRM or Acumatica ERP legacy systems.
Therefore they must simultaneously support old and new techniques; promising technologies like SaaS may only serve as silos of data storage unless appropriately integrated into your legacy system.
Cloud and SaaS applications only function efficiently if they can easily integrate with B2B integration tools like MFT/EDI solutions.
How can we bridge this divide and take advantage of modern SaaS and cloud applications without disruption? Current ecosystem integration could provide the answer.
Why It Is Essential To Integrate Legacy Systems And Modern Technology
Consider these three important reasons:
- As previously discussed, legacy systems can still meet your business requirements for data tracking, report generation and more.
By connecting these systems to apps with modern UIs - such as those built using OutSystems - an enterprise automation system makes it possible to retain their valuable functionality while sidestepping their clunky user experience.
- Legacy applications need to offer better reporting capabilities on their own.
By integrating legacy apps with Snowflake, however, data can be extracted and reported on more quickly and comprehensively than before.
- By connecting legacy applications to the rest of your technology stack, legacy apps can automatically sync records across systems - not only eliminating data silos but also eliminating app-hopping - creating opportunities to automate workflows end-to-end in areas like HR, Finance, Sales & Marketing etc.
Options For Integrating Legacy Apps With Modern Systems
Once you decide it's necessary, integrating legacy systems can seem daunting. Here is some guidance to get you started:
There are various choices, and your decision should depend on the capabilities and nature of the legacy system you want to upgrade.
- The best way to integrate the legacy system is through an API.
Your legacy system and apps can easily communicate using its API and then use triggers and actions allowing real-time data transfers or sync-up.
- To integrate with a legacy database, you can use the database connector provided by an enterprise automation system.
As it allows near real-time data export, two potential drawbacks should be kept in mind when considering it as a solution:
Understanding your legacy data model to adapt it for use on new systems will be crucial in successfully migrating from old systems.
Imagine a database containing an invoice type field; customer invoice types would be located at #1, while supplier invoices at #2 would require your knowledge of data model format to use these numbers effectively.
Data should only ever be read from a database; adding additional entries would compromise your team's efforts at maintaining data consistency.
- You can import and export data using files if they are available.
This method of data sync is reliable but cannot offer real-time updates; data will instead be imported or extracted on an ongoing, timed schedule; for instance, every day or every few hours.
Legacy System Integration Challenges
Poor user experiences are one of the significant drawbacks of old legacy equipment in an IT department, limiting employee productivity and increasing dissatisfaction among staff members.
Legacy technologies may also be challenging to use due to being designed specifically for specific tasks or used only by particular types of users. Both factors decrease the adoption/stickiness/use rates of these pieces of hardware, thus further diminishing their worth over time.
Imagine all the difficulties and headaches of ERP legacy integrations: these ERPs often date from the 1980s or 90s.
They are built using older technology like IBM AS/400. Their initial version featured an outdated character-based user interface without all the necessary attributes for nontechnical users to navigate it easily; additionally, they contain numerous custom integrations and outdated reporting and analytics tools that add another challenge and headache for legacy system adoptions.
Here are some more common problems associated with legacy technology:
* Structure of integration that is rigid
- Limited data visibility between applications and systems
* One-off "siloed" solutions are challenging to manage
* Poor data security
The overall latency of data movement
Enterprises should understand what their systems can accomplish and what limitations exist in those same systems.
Employees might become used to legacy technology because it still functions. Yet, its inflexibility will limit business expansion and requires constant upkeep and support costs.
Enterprises must have access to B2B data at every point, giving them greater control of critical data flows. Trading partners, customers and third-party suppliers form part of an ecosystem integral to any enterprise; unfortunately, outdated technologies don't have enough capabilities - including visibility, partner onboarding and data transformation capabilities - to support that ecosystem effectively.
As your business thrives and evolves, so must its approach to challenges such as B2B data and applications support.
Now is the time for companies to embrace flexibility and agility for business expansion.
How Do You Integrate Legacy Systems?
These legacy technologies will only disappear for a while because they still provide helpful functionality; getting rid of them would make no financial or logical sense.
Innovative companies recognize this and work toward striking an equilibrium between old and new systems while embarking on digital transformation journeys.
At its heart, cost-effective integrations of legacy systems with modern applications must occur without disruption, so enterprises may continue to utilize legacy applications while taking advantage of SaaS or cloud solutions like ERPs, CRMs or other critical business applications such as ERPs or CRMs.
Organizations facing this challenge must be flexible, agile and possess thorough governance structures to support B2B communication and trading partner processes that drive revenue while seamlessly integrating these data flows with backend systems.
Below are a few approaches organizations have used successfully:
Build The Integration
How often will your ecosystem change? Companies often customize solutions by tailoring an in-house proprietary integration or writing code to fit their requirements.
Still, this undertaking can be daunting enough to cause hesitation among organizations.
Use APIs
Developers will be essential in managing any changes that arise; ultimately, you are accountable for any necessary adjustments or updates that need to take place.
Starting an API-first architecture integration may cost less but take more time; developers who understand this space will also be necessary to keep pace.
Although both approaches offer advantages, their implementation requires significant expertise and takes time. Most enterprises opt for another, more cost-efficient route instead.
Use Integration Connectors
Pre-built connectors form part of an integration platform and require less time than the other development methods.
Their maintenance by their vendor enables enterprises to configure applications within hours using these connectors, increasing time to value while offering all of the integration agility, capability, and adaptability provided by other approaches.
Integrate Your Ecosystem Today
Your legacy IT systems should still meet the needs of your business if they can accommodate newer systems and applications that your enterprise demands.
Integration Cloud, an intuitive single platform for integration, was designed to reliably link legacy environments with SaaS applications without fear of disruption.
Furthermore, its flexible deployment options can meet any business requirement while freeing IT teams from tedious integration management and focusing instead on growth strategies for growth-minded enterprises.
Integration Cloud can assist in meeting all your business goals - be they modernization initiatives designed to integrate your ecosystem more rapidly or to stay compliant with industry mandates and customer SLAs.
Serverless Web Application
Serverless computing enables developers and organizations to easily build and deploy services and applications without worrying about servers.
AWS manages them so you can focus on developing code rather than worrying about server configuration and management. AWS' Serverless Platform makes deployment cost-effective with built-in availability and flexible scaling enabling you to focus on application code rather than server administration issues.
Read More: What is Oracle SaaS Application?
Why Should You Build A Serverless App?
Serverless apps enable developers to focus solely on writing the app code instead of managing infrastructure. AWS manages server provisioning and configuration on your behalf reducing management complexity significantly and providing faster time-to-market.
Building a serverless app offers four main advantages. These benefits are:
No Server Management
No need to install, configure, manage or administer servers - none whatsoever are needed in this setup! No software or runtime needs to be maintained in addition to being provisioned and administered as well.
Flexible Scaling
Your application's capacity can be easily adjusted by altering its consumption units (throughput, memory etc), rather than changing individual server capacities.
High Availability
Serverless applications are built with availability and fault tolerance in mind; their services already incorporate these features, eliminating any need to design them from scratch.
No Idle Capacity
Do not pay for idle capacity; overprovisioning compute and storage resources isn't required when your code doesn't run, for instance.
There will be no charges when your application doesn't function.
How Can I Create A Serverless App?
Combining several AWS services together will allow you to build a serverless application. Each service provided by AWS does not require you to manage or provision servers; simply combine two services and upload code for your app onto AWS Lambda to complete this serverless computing service.
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Conclusion:
Cyber Infrastructure Inc. provides five effective means for streamlining cloud integration within Oracle SOA Cloud Service and Oracle Integration Cloud to simplify life on this journey towards simplicity.
Take action now by embarking upon this journey!
Explore how cloud integration can work with existing products. You have several options for using hybrid integration models or developing them yourself from scratch: integration platforms are one option.
Alternatively, you could construct them completely cloud or on-premise with the option to switch when required.
