How PLM can avoid cloud integration spaghetti?

June 18, 2015
Technologies
Oleg
11 Comments
0

Enterprise integration is a messy space. It is always complex – applications, databases, new and legacy systems, complexity of requirements. People usually need to run at least dozen of applications to run things smoothly. It is never done out-of-the-box and it is always requires circles of implementations and professional services.

I caught the following picture tweeted yesterday by Stan Przybylinski of CIMdata. It provides an excellent view of integration complexity. Unfortunately, in many situations, integration is a major challenge in PLM adoption. To get full value of PLM, company should spend a fortune integrating data and processes – CAD, Bill of materials, ECO, etc.

Cloud is coming to enterprise these days. In many ways it creates a new way to think about data, software, services and maybe integrations too. The new technologies and eco-system of services can make a difference. It also creates a significant demand for openness and interoperability. This is a main reason why PLM need to learn web APIs. Web services and REST APIs are changing the way integration can be done.

Technology can make a difference. However, integrations are still hard. Few months ago, I shared my thoughts how to prevent cloud PLM integration mistakes. It comes down to three main things – 1/ lost data semantics; 2/ limitation of data transfers; 3/ transaction management in distributed and cross site environment.

Unfortunately, cloud is not a silver bullet to solve integration challenges. The demand for holistic integration continuum is still in the future. In practice, cloud applications today are replicating bad siloed behaviors of on premise applications. I captured the following picture earlier this week at Boston New Technology meetup.

This picture is the great demonstration of how bad aspects of siloed on premise applications are moving to cloud environment. Migration of applications on cloud infrastructure such as IaaS can simplify IT’s life. However, it won’t make life of users simpler. From end user standpoint, applications will still run in a silo.

What is my conclusion? The danger is to move established on premise PLM paradigms to the cloud. Technologically new cloud systems can give an advantages in terms of integrations. REST API is one example – it is much easier to code integration scenarios using REST APIs and modern web based tools. At the same time, closed data paradigms and data duplication between silos can bring well-know data spaghetti from on-premise applications to the cloud. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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broepke

Great post Oleg. I totally agree. A few things that I totally agree on and that jump out:

1) RESTful Web Sevices provide a huge advantage. They’re so much easier to deal with. Autodesk PLM 360 has a REST API and we integrate with a lot of other RESTful SaaS applications. So much easier.

2) in the future… Integration between best in class applications will look like that bottom image. People are picking the best SaaS application for their task but they want them to be tied together. Reminds me of a blog post from Box CEO – https://www.box.com/blog/the-rise-of-the-cloud-stack/.

3) Finally; I think there is a new class of integration that people will come to expect. The “IFTTT” (If This Then That) style integration – Check out Zapier for a perfect example of how simple the cloud world is able to connect and talk together. Slack has this type of technology built into it and so do a few other new tools. https://zapier.com

Thanks!
beyondplm

Brian, thanks for your comment and sharing links! Indeed, the technology for integration is getting easier and this is why cloud software will have an advantage. Zapier is a good example.

However, the current state of cloud enterprise software is far from IFTTT style and requires lot of REST API work. It also connects to technical readiness of service companies to work with cloud-based software. I’d love to learn how many PLM360 implementation service companies are also providing traditional PLM implementation and how many of them are pure cloud service companies. Can you share this information?

Thanks, Oleg
broepke

I think you’ll always have a mix of old tech and new tech. As you know we rely on Jitterbit (http://www.jitterbit.com/) for integration. They’re GREAT for REST, SOAP, ODBC, JDBC and Flat File connections. It allows us to really bridge between the old and new.

However; we’re seeing a new class of customer – 100% cloud IT organizations. It’s more common that you would think. People are mashing up NetSuite, PLM 360, Salesforce.com, Jira, GitHub, Slack, Google, Office, and more. It’s incredible. This is the new norm and this is where IFTTT like integration will make a huge difference. Stay tuned 🙂
beyondplm

I’d love to see an example of mashing Netsuite and PLM360 in a IFTTT style implementation- is there any public video or document with example available? Thanks, Oleg
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How PLM can avoid cloud integration spaghetti?

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