Integration techniques

Software implementors have come a long way from the early standalone programs, running originally on small computers, to today's modern applications connecting to multiple data centers and running on various devices. The need for early applications was limited, as were their integration capabilities. However, today old and traditional integration is not enough to serve the scale and functionality of the new applications that are being developed.

In the early days, integration requirements were met to connect two applications using custom development or point-to-point integration. Employees were writing code to handle scenario-based requirements. Software developers analyzed each customer's specific requirements and wrote a new integration component, which potentially used existing code, to integrate data and solution components.

In the early stages of integration, this involved the transfer of flat files between two systems. Here, both the sender and receiver...