Exploration and practice of EventBridge in the field of SaaS enterprise integration

What is SaaS?

SaaS Overview

SaaS (Software as a Service) originates from the new software service model created by Salesforce Corporation of the United States (founded in 1999). Compared to traditional software, the data of SaaS software used by users is stored in the cloud (there are many industries in China where SaaS is separately deployed in customer IDC due to its data sensitivity). Moreover, the services provided by SaaS companies to their customers are usually rented on demand, such as paying an annual usage fee for 5 years, and then renewing the fee the next year. If they are not satisfied, they can also not renew the fee, which will greatly stimulate SaaS startups to continue polishing their products and provide greater value to their customers.

Typical classification of SaaS

SaaS classification is relatively cumbersome, and generally has two classification dimensions. One dimension is based on usage scenarios, and the other dimension is based on business value.

SaaS is generally classified into two basic categories: general SaaS and industry SaaS.

General SaaS, as the name implies, is universal and cross industry, such as nailing instant messaging or a company's HR product. Due to its wider usage scenarios, its customer base will also increase.

Industry SaaS is a product used in a certain industry, such as catering enterprise SaaS, e-commerce SaaS, etc.

Of course, there are also two dimensions: tool SaaS and commercial SaaS.

The tool SaaS provides a tool for customer enterprises to improve management efficiency; In addition to providing a portion of "tool" value, commercial SaaS can also provide value-added value to customer enterprises, such as increasing revenue and obtaining funds.

Although commercial SaaS products are more risky, they are easier to quickly realize customer value and self value under the unique domestic business environment, management level, and talent structure.

Development of SaaS in China

For the SaaS field, the popularity of cloud services has boosted everyone's confidence in the stability and data security of SaaS services. At the same time, the fading population dividend has highlighted the cost advantage of SaaS. The current epidemic environment has also accelerated market education, and the demand for business owners to change their thinking and reduce costs and increase efficiency has significantly increased. As the penetration rate of the entire industry accelerates, the SaaS scenario and industry become deeper and deeper, and the SaaS market can expect rapid growth in the future. Many enterprises will use SaaS services in new business scenarios, taking small steps to try and make mistakes, and solving the problems of survival, rather than building wheels repeatedly.

What is B2B?

B2B, or Business to Business (B2B) integration, refers to the automation of business processes and communications between two or more organizations. By automating key business processes, it enables the connection of non application and organizational relationships, effectively promoting data connectivity and cooperation between application providers and customers.

It can be asserted that as the SaaS industry gradually penetrates, the demand for enterprise integration will gradually increase. The demand for data synchronization, user synchronization, and interface synchronization will gradually increase, including the connection between self built services and SaaS services, and the connection between SaaS services and SaaS services.

Scenario Analysis of SaaS Integration Domain

With the gradual enrichment of industrial SaaS, data integration and interoperability between applications and applications have become crucial in enterprise production practices. This includes scenarios such as API integration, data integration, and process integration.

API integration

The business processes of SaaS applications are concatenated through APIs. At this stage, most SaaS integration and docking are implemented through standard API protocols. The source side uses the WebHook mechanism to push to the specified HTTP endpoint, while the target side uses a method similar to API interface calls to actively call for execution actions.

The implementation structure is as follows:

Almost all common solutions in the industry are synchronous solutions that decouple and map calls through API+intermediate gateways. The main problem with this scheme is that it is difficult to call traceability; Secondly, if there is an inconsistency in upstream and downstream interface restrictions, it will cause a large number of downstream calls to fail.

data Integration

The data integration scenario mainly involves the integration of enterprise built systems and SaaS systems. As enterprises increasingly use SaaS in the industry, data consistency issues become imminent.

Most enterprises typically face scenarios where data is imported/synchronized to SaaS applications on the cloud, while the data integration solution for SaaS applications in the industry is not as standard and generic as Debezium in the CDC scenario.

Pain Points for Enterprises in the SaaS Integration Field

High access cost

For enterprises that use SaaS applications extensively, SaaS integration is a necessary infrastructure. However, this part of infrastructure construction usually consumes a lot of manpower. Due to the diversity of SaaS in various industries, it is often difficult to use a single architecture to meet all integration scenarios. This means that generally, enterprises using every SaaS will face difficulties in integrating SaaS systems with their own systems.

Multiple heterogeneous data

Heterogeneous data is another typical feature in the integration field. Heterogeneous data usually includes structured data, unstructured data, and semi structured data. For example, enterprise built relational databases are typically structured data, but semi-structured data such as Json is often used to integrate with other SaaS systems. Of course, this part of the content can be done through customized code, but this idea must not be the idea of making a message hub;

How to efficiently and uniformly process heterogeneous data is actually an urgent issue for current SaaS integration, and it is also the biggest conflict point.

Difficulty in distribution/routing

When many integration requirements arise at the same time, how to distribute the integrated data reasonably becomes another difficult issue in the integration field. The data content and even the data type required by each segmentation scenario and even each integrated link are different. If routing/distribution cannot be completed, enterprise unified integration cannot be achieved.

Integration tracking difficulties

When all synchronous links are used, the integrated state tracking here will become metaphysical unless the link is connected to Tracing, but this part will generate high transformation costs, and the complexity of multi-source Tracing will increase exponentially compared to a single link.

Difficulty in migrating old systems

The migration of old systems mainly involves data integration. Connecting new and old systems and building a unified application network is currently a challenge for enterprises to build SaaS. Enterprises urgently need a way to connect "new" and "old" applications, break the time and space boundaries of enterprise application development, collaborate with their original core data assets and innovative applications, and build a smoothly evolving enterprise IT architecture.

EventBridge one-stop enterprise SaaS integration solution

In response to various pain points in SaaS system integration in the industry, EventBridge has launched a one-stop enterprise SaaS integration solution. By converging on SaaS integration pain points, EventBridge has launched API integration solutions and data integration solutions to connect applications and cloud applications.

Low code integration platform

Provide fully hosted integration platform services, and complete application integration in minutes with simple configuration on the console. Customers do not need to care about underlying resources and implementation details to get through cloud to cloud, SaaS to SaaS integration and connection, and easily complete heterogeneous data access.

Financial grade stability

Meet the requirements of different customer enterprise level integration projects, providing high availability, disaster recovery, security, service level agreements (SLAs), and comprehensive technical support.

Comprehensive integration capability

Support various integration scenarios to break through the information silos between enterprise applications on and off the cloud, the Internet of Things, devices, and partners. Support multiple routing methods such as event rules and event routing to achieve cross cloud and cross region interoperability and information sharing. At the same time, strong link tracking capabilities can help enterprises quickly troubleshoot obstacles.

Open platform

Embrace the CloudEvents community and provide standardized event integration solutions. Provide a wealth of developer tools, with a large number of ecological partners and developers, and rich out of the box connectors and application components can help accelerate enterprise business innovation.

Typical Application Scenarios of EventBridge in the SaaS Field

SaaS application synchronization

Application synchronization refers to the behavior of migrating a specific set of events from one system to another at a specific point in time. The event synchronization mode allows developers to create data automatic migration integration services; Business personnel and developers can automatically transfer data within a specific range to downstream applications by configuring integrated applications; Creating reusable services can save development and operations teams significant time.

For example:

Migrate sales opportunity data from an old CRM (customer relationship management) system to a new CRM instance;

Migrating sales order data from one CRM organization to another;

Synchronize product master data from ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) into the CRM system.

Event broadcast

Event broadcasting is the act of moving events from a single source system to multiple target systems on a continuous, near real-time, or real-time basis. In essence, it is one to many one-way synchronization. Typically, "one-way synchronization" represents a 1:1 relationship. However, the broadcast mode can also be a 1: n (n greater than 1) relationship.

For example:

When a sales opportunity is marked as a successful customs clearance in CRM, a sales order should be created in ERP.

SaaS Application Notification

Event notification refers to notifying users of certain types of events that occur in SaaS applications through notification methods such as stapling, SMS, and so on. Users can obtain key event information in a timely manner.

For example:

When a sales opportunity is marked as an important opportunity in CRM, it will be promptly notified to other colleagues for follow-up and attention.

Self built system to cloud migration

EventBridge supports cloud databases, cloud message queues, and cloud product event docking with SaaS systems, improves the demands of enterprise users to build a network of applications, breaks the time and space boundaries of enterprise application development, and cooperates with the original core assets of the enterprise and the SaaS system to build an evolving enterprise IT architecture.

For example:

When a new SaaS application is introduced, the core assets of the database/big data platform (such as personnel information, etc.) can be synchronized to the SaaS application through the EventBridge.