System Integration: Event-Driven APIs in a Multi-Vendor World
REST, async events, iPaaS, and contract testing kept ERP, CRM, and SaaS estates aligned when change was constant.
Most organisations in 2024 did not lack software — they lacked connected software. Integration programmes turned isolated systems into a coherent operational picture: orders, inventory, finance, and customer records updating without manual re-entry or fragile overnight batch jobs.
Integration styles
REST APIs remained the workhorse for synchronous calls, often documented with OpenAPI and validated through contract tests in CI. GraphQL suited flexible client queries where over-fetching was costly. For high-volume or decoupled flows, message brokers — Azure Service Bus, RabbitMQ, or Kafka — carried events with retry, idempotency keys, and dead-letter handling.
iPaaS and custom middleware
Platforms like Boomi, MuleSoft, or Azure Logic Apps accelerated standard connectors, while custom middleware handled domain rules no template could capture. Mature programmes mixed both: commodity integrations on iPaaS, critical paths engineered in code with full test coverage and observability via OpenTelemetry.
Quality and governance
Versioned contracts, sandbox environments, and monitored latency and error rates reduced breakage when vendors upgraded without notice. Integration health was as visible as application uptime on executive dashboards.
PrequaliQ builds integration layers that respect your existing investments — Oracle, Salesforce, .NET services, and modern SaaS — without forcing a rip-and-replace strategy.