SaaS and Integration Best Practices

The rising adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications by enterprise organizations has been driven by deep dissatisfaction with on-premise applications, which require organizations to purchase and deploy infrastructure, overstock on licenses, and pay for expensive resources for customizations, upgrades, and on-going maintenance. The large upfront investments combined with unpredictable costs and an immeasurable return on investment have prompted organizations to seek cheaper less-risky alternatives. Many have found that SaaS applications, which require minimal or no infrastructure and maintenance, can be deployed quickly and have a predictable cost model representing less risk and a faster return on investment. The new demand has led to rapid innovation in SaaS applications, SaaS platforms, third-party SaaS add-ons, and SaaS integration tools. However, enterprise organizations still have the burden of integrating these applications with their back-office systems and on-premise applications, without which the SaaS applications have little to no value. Complex enterprise integration requirements challenge even the best SaaS solution providers today; there are still limitations and pitfalls to be wary of. In this paper, we describe some SaaS integration best practices, present a case study, and highlight emerging integration technologies that can help ease the burden of integrating SaaS applications.