There’s a renewed interest in integration technologies due to new needs for integration to mobile, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud — but also because integration requirements betwen systems of engagement and systems of record are requiring realtime for seamless boundaries omnichannel, higher volume, with end-to-end security highlight the changes in integration practices. Forrester will soon publish a report about the integration trends around these subjects.

I am happy to pick up this subject again from Stefan Ried after being away from the space for the past six years. Stefan left Forrester in December and I regret his departure, because he was a very passionate analyst and a smart guy to work with.

I’m starting a project to inventory the technologies participating in the integration space, as there have been a lot of changes. To help me ramp up on all the changes to this domain, I would like to get feedback from customers, vendors, and consultants who work with, choose, or recommend integration technologies on a daily basis. Not all integration technologies; I’m deliberately avoiding some technologies, like BPM and ETL/ELT/data integration, as my colleagues Clay Richardson and Noel Yuhanna have already covered these in TechRadar reports.

I’ve identified 17 distinct technologies or product categories (see the list below) for this mainly “application integration technologies” space. I’m sure there are technologies that I’ve missed and that there are arguments to be made to remove others. As always, your help significantly improves my research!

If you are interested in participating in this research or have feedback on the technology list, please respond via this web form, in the comments below, or via email or Twitter (@hpeyret).

  • API gateways
  • API management
  • Application connectors
  • B2B/EDI
  • End-to-end security for integration
  • ESB
  • Hybrid2 integration
  • IFTTT
  • In-memory for integration
  • IoT/M2M integration
  • iPaaS
  • Mainframe connectors
  • Mobile Middleware
  • mBaaS
  • Revenue assurance
  • Semantic mapping and metadata
  • UI integration