The most important tools of the digital revolution

Navdeep Sidhu, Senior Director, Integration & API Management Product Marketing at Software AG, explains: "Digital transformation cannot happen fast enough. In 2016, this development will continue: Customer behavior continues to change and challenge every business model. I see eight key trends that we need to adapt to this year." The tools of the digital revolution are called:

1. bimodal concept

Citizen developers and Citizen integrators work side-by-side with IT teams to deliver new applications and interfaces and increase the overall innovation performance of the business. Various integration models are combined and further developed in IT.

2. integration = Big Data

Companies have now adopted Hadoop platforms for data storage, but are unable to harness the potential of this data. By integrating existing systems with the newly acquired Hadoop platforms, this potential can be harnessed and Big Data can be used to make intelligent decisions.

3. microservices on the rise

Microservices will gain in importance and gradually displace monolithic architectures. Companies driving their digital transformation will realize that monolithic legacy architectures are the biggest obstacle to faster innovation.

APIs are the answer, and self-service API onboarding capabilities are driving integration.

4. internet of things meets MDM

According to the broader definition of Customer 360, MDM (master data management) takes into account data about customers' buying preferences and links it to standard MDM processes to improve data quality (such as cleansing and matching). Synchronization and enrichment of customer master data using device-generated sensor data is becoming an increasingly important requirement for customer data consolidation within MDM.

5. MDM becomes more attractive

MDM solutions can support data stewards more and more effectively by simplifying working views, providing more application-oriented interfaces, and integrating business intelligence tools and dashboards that illustrate the benefits and advantages of high data quality for business processes.

6 Hybrid solutions

Cloud infrastructure adoption is complex and digital app development requires organizations to innovate. Therefore, every IT needs to explore different cloud options. Enterprises want hybrid cloud integration as well as managed cloud solutions.

Rather than focusing exclusively on public and private cloud options, IT will increasingly consider other models for even greater flexibility and control.

7. swagger

In terms of application programming interface, the Swagger API framework is becoming a de facto standard. Groups like the Open API Initiative are driving the use of Swagger in API development. Vendors will get behind the Open API Initiative and give Swagger the much-needed boost to become the leading API standard, while RAML (RESTful API Modeling Language) will become less important.

8. self-service integration

When everything is an API, and everyone can access company data - people within the company itself, as well as customers, partners and suppliers, but also banks and virtually anyone else in the environment - companies need tools to manage this complex world of data access.

Navdeep Sidhu concludes, "This year, enterprises will focus on identifying the IT capabilities that enable rapid transformation, and they will do so because they have found that existing models are not fit for purpose. At the end of the day, all of our predictions are about how companies can build better business applications - because it's in these that they manifest how they become digital businesses."

The entire communication can be found at www.softwareag.com