As long ago as 2008, 451 Research noted that “the heyday of the enterprise service bus may have come and gone.”

Nine years later, it’s fair to ask whether legacy enterprise service bus (ESB) systems can possibly keep up with the data integration requirements of today’s enterprises.

It’s an important question. Many enterprises are embarking on bold digital transformation initiatives, re-imagining operations and creating new products and services that leverage big data, machine learning, mobile services, the Internet of Things (IoT), and other cutting-edge technologies.

New technologies and increased automation are causing data volumes to double roughly every two years. Machine data — that is, data generated by systems and devices rather than people — is now growing 50 times faster than traditional business data. Thanks to the IoT and mobile enablement, the number of devices is growing rapidly as well. That means data integration systems are tasked with connecting more data to more endpoints than ever before.

Can ESBs keep up? There are many signs that they cannot.

To gain better insights into how ESBs might be holding back your company, download our new eBook,  “7 Warning Signs You Need to Replace Your ESB.” Some of those warning signs include the following challenges created by ESBs:

• Integration requests are overwhelming IT departments and stalling IT initiatives.
  Developing and maintaining ESB connections often requires the work of experienced programmers. In almost any organization, experienced programmers are in high demand and face a backlog of requests. ESB development projects and change requests can pile up, slowing progress, and putting business goals at risk.
  
  
• Users are turning to Shadow IT.
  If end users’ integration frustrations aren’t addressed quickly, they may turn to Shadow IT, signing up for cloud services behind the IT department’s back to get the connectivity and services they want. Many CIOs vastly underestimate the number of cloud services their organization is using. On average, they guess the number to be around 51, but in reality it’s usually about 730, spurred in part by end users turning to Shadow IT when official IT personnel are unable to deliver computing services on time.
  
  
• Architectural incompatibilities are becoming hard to miss.
  ESBs were designed to support the loose coupling of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) services, but in the name of expediency many simply created tightly coupled systems, hard-coding connections between services. Adding to the difficulty of maintaining and updating these connections is that many of these systems rely on SOAP, rather than REST or JSON, the protocols favored by today’s SaaS offerings.

Many enterprises find themselves struggling to connect new SaaS services that rely on REST or JSON to highly customized SOAP services on their USB. They wonder if there’s an easier way to integrate SaaS applications with legacy resources.

Enterprises Need Cloud-Era Integration: iPaaS

ESBs still have their place in hybrid IT environments, but that place is increasingly limited. ESBs were never designed to support the new kinds of applications and cloud services that are rapidly reshaping how employees, partners, and customers interact.

As research has revealed, ESBs often fail to support applications in the cloud, convergence of data and applications (being application-oriented), and the dynamic integration needs of today’s connected business.

To support cloud-based services and accelerate IT initiatives, organizations should complement or replace their ESB with an iPaaS (integration-Platform-as-a-Service) platform like the one offered by Dell Boomi. Using an iPaaS, an organization can quickly integrate new technologies such as SaaS and microservices with traditional SOA services and legacy applications.

Boomi’s intuitive, browser-based interface, integration templates, and community-based libraries of common mappings enable integration teams to complete integration tasks quickly, reducing reliance on internal development teams, eliminating backlogs, and accelerating critical digital transformation initiatives.

Get the eBook and Look for the Warning Signs

Do you see the warning signs that you need to replace your ESB? Download our new eBook “7 Warning Signs You Need to Replace Your ESB” to identify these signs and learn how iPaaS solutions can speed you on your way.