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By ProServeIT on May 25, 2017

What is an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)?

 

To keep up with increasing demands of business, including increased profitability targets and decreased cost targets, organizations are exchanging and processing more data than ever before. It’s critical in this data-driven world that your organization can handle the data flow in the most efficient manner possible to maximize profit and keep costs low.

One of the main issues with exchanging and processing data is that it is increasingly unstructured, meaning that the data does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. Unstructured data is typically text-heavy, but may also contain information such as dates, numbers and facts. This often results in irregularities and ambiguities that make it difficult to understand using traditional programs.

How can your organization efficiently tie all of this data together and share it effectively? By implementing an Enterprise Service Bus!

 

What is an Enterprise Service Bus?

An Enterprise Service Bus is middleware technology that acts as an integration point between business systems. The Enterprise Service Bus allows data exchanges between multiple systems without worrying about data compatibility between data-producing applications.

An Enterprise Service Bus is implemented in software that operates between your business applications and enables communication among them, using an enterprise message model that defines a standard set of messages that the Enterprise Service Bus transmits and receives.

When compared to a point-to-point integration solution, where data is exchanged only between two systems in a very dedicated manner, an Enterprise Service Bus will significantly increase performance, remove data silos and improve response times.

Why an Enterprise Service Bus Can Make Your Data Much More Valuable
To differentiate and remain competitive in today’s marketplace, organizational decision making must be more data driven. Leveraging data as a competitive advantage makes data a central enabler to an organization’s operations and strategy.

In a business world that increasingly demands real-time insights, decision making continues to be inhibited by incomplete and slow-moving information.

An Enterprise Service Bus can act as an integration point between your business systems, seamlessly handling your data exchanges while eliminating the complexity and costs associated with a non-integrated approach.

The need for an Enterprise Service Bus is increasing constantly. Unstructured data is growing at three times the rate of structured data and over 80% of business decisions are being made using unstructured data, often on a daily basis.

Remember the 4 Vs of Data
The 4 Vs of Data are specific goals your business systems need to achieve to get the biggest bang for the buck with your data. A well-planned Enterprise Service Bus will satisfy all of these 4 Vs:

  • Velocity (the Speed of data) – The need for your data to be moved as fast as possible.
  • Veracity (the Trustworthiness of data) – The need for your data to be moved reliably.
  • Variety (the Diversity of data) – The need for your data to be made compatible with all your systems by having the ability to accept and deliver data in different formats.
  • Volume (the Scale of data) – The need for your systems to handle large volumes of data.

This is where an Enterprise Service Bus can make a huge difference in your organization’s ability to move data rapidly and accurately. You can analyze data faster and develop your business strategies more reliably.

 

5 Steps to Implementing an Enterprise Service Bus

There are many different Enterprise Service Bus solutions available so it’s important that you have a good idea of how you want to proceed with choosing and deploying your Enterprise Service Bus. Here are five steps to follow when you implement an Enterprise Service Bus:

Step 1 – Before proceeding with an Enterprise Service Bus implementation, evaluate your integration environment. Identify the different integration patterns and requirements that your organization will require from the Enterprise Service Bus solution you ultimately select.
Step 2 – Once you have chosen your Enterprise Service Bus, create an implementation plan to guide the direction and effort your organization will need to deploy the Enterprise Service Bus solution you have chosen.
Step 3 – Develop a testing plan to test the implementation holistically. This will reduce your costs by aligning your data and services, increasing security, and ensuring your IT environment is easier to support and maintain.
Step 4 – Define the integration governance measures to take care of maintaining your Enterprise Service Bus and keeping it in top running order.
Step 5 – De-risk your Enterprise Service Bus with a pilot deployment. Learn from climbing a hill before you climb the mountain. A pilot project will grow confidence in the project team and expose any gaps that should be addressed early.

Implementing an Enterprise Service Bus should be a “slow and steady wins the race” project. In other words, don’t try to involve all your systems with your Enterprise Service Bus all at once. Target the high-priority systems that will provide your organization with the greatest benefit first. Later on, other systems can be added to the Enterprise Service Bus as needed.

 

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An Enterprise Service Bus is a great solution to help you clean up integration mess and improve connectivity among your systems. You can also more easily support downstream systems, federate data for enterprise views and build trust that your data is accurate. Our team has worked with many organizations to help them achieve these goals by implementing an Enterprise Service Bus. Take Advantage of our Expertise. Contact us today!

Published by ProServeIT May 25, 2017
ProServeIT