Gartner hat einen neuen Quadranten entwickelt, der besonders auf Lösungen zur Integration von Software auf Cloud-Architektur-Plattformen zielt: Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service. Gartner bezeichnet dies übergreifend als “integration platform as a service” (iPaaS)  In diesem Marktsegment ist noch viel zu tun, wie die große Anzahl von Anbietern, die als “Visonary” eingestuft wurden, zeigt. Der Magic Quadrant Report vom 30.3.2017 ist frei verfügbar: http://gtnr.it/2rnBVcO 

Gartner definiert dieses Marktsegment wie folgt (Zitat):

“An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) provides capabilities to enable subscribers (aka “tenants”) to implement data, application, API and process integration projects spanning cloud-resident and on-premises endpoints. This is achieved by developing, deploying, executing, managing and monitoring “integration flows” (aka “integration interfaces”) — that is, integration applications bridging between multiple endpoints so that they can work together.

iPaaS capabilities typically include:

• Communication protocol connectors (FTP, HTTP, AMQP, MQTT, Kafka, AS1/2/3/4, etc.)

• Application connectors/adapters for SaaS and on-premises packaged applications

• Data formats (XML, JSON, ASN.1, etc.)

• Data standards (EDIFACT, HL7, SWIFT, etc.)

• Data mapping and transformation

• Data quality

• Routing and orchestration

• Integration flow development and life cycle management tools

• Integration flow operational monitoring and management

• Full life cycle API management

An iPaaS is typically used for cloud service integration (CSI) and application to application (A2A) integration scenarios. Increasingly, they are also being used for business to business (B2B) integration, mobile application integration (MAI), API publishing and Internet of Things (IoT) integration scenarios.

Gartner considers an iPaaS to be an “enterprise iPaaS” if it:

• Is designed to support enterprise-class integration projects (that is, projects requiring high availability, disaster recovery, security, service-level agreements [SLAs] and technical support from the provider)

• Can support several of the use cases mentioned above

This market includes only companies that provide public iPaaS offerings. Providers that sell only iPaaS-enabling software or that provide iPaaS capabilities either embedded in other xPaaS solutions, such as aPaaS, or with SaaS applications are not considered to be players in the enterprise iPaaS market.”

Hier stellt sich die Frage, ob es sich nur um die alte Idee des EAI Enterprise Application Integration handelt, die nunmehr auf Cloud-Services transformiert wird. Für das Thema Information Management ist iPaaS als Konzept in jedem Fall relevant, weil auch hier Informationen ausgetauscht, erschlossen, verwaltet, gesichert und aufbewahrt werden müssen. Bei Gartner verbirgt sich dies hinter dem Begriff “Information Lifecycle Management Tools”.