What is application integration?
Application integration refers to the process of enabling independently designed applications to work together. In a general sense, it means connecting different software systems to share data and business logic. From a technical perspective, application integration involves a combination of APIs, protocols (like HTTP, MQTT, AMQP), middleware (such as ESBs or iPaaS), and message brokers that facilitate communication across disparate systems. Application integration enables automation, improves customer experience, and ensures that data flows smoothly across departments and systems. As organizations adopt cloud platforms and hybrid IT environments, integration plays a key role in achieving a composable enterprise architecture, where modular services can be assembled and reassembled as business needs evolve.
What is event-driven architecture?
Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern in which decoupled applications can asynchronously publish and subscribe to events via an event broker (modern messaging-oriented-middleware). EDA lets information flow between applications, microservices, and connected devices in a real-time manner as events occur throughout the business. By introducing a middleman known as an event broker, EDA enables what’s called loose coupling of applications, meaning applications and devices don’t need to know where they are sending information, or where information they’re consuming comes from.
What is event-driven integration?
Event-driven integration is an integration pattern in which independent IT components (applications, devices etc.) communicate in a decoupled manner by publishing and subscribing to events. Event-driven integration is the application of event-driven architecture to integration, whereby integration functions such as connectivity, transformation and mapping are broken into smaller components and loosely coupled via the publish/subscribe exchange pattern – a lot like event-driven microservices. Event driven integration complements API-led integration, meeting integration needs not well suited to synchronous or point-to-point integrations.
What is a micro-integration?
Micro-integrations are small, lightweight event-driven integration modules that connect enterprise technologies (legacy and SaaS applications, messaging services, databases, files, AI agents etc.) to an event-driven distribution layer, so they can exchange information in real-time. Micro-integrations are to integration and connectivity what microservices are to application architectures: they decompose a monolithic integration flow into smaller, more manageable, purpose-built components.
What is an event broker?
An event broker is message-oriented middleware that enables the transmission of events between different components of a system, acting as a mediator between publishers and subscribers. It is the cornerstone of event-driven architecture, and all event-driven applications use some form of event broker to send and receive information.
What is an event mesh?
An event mesh is a network of interconnected event brokers that enables the distribution of events information among applications, cloud services, and devices within an enterprise. An event mesh can route information from one application to any other applications no matter where they are deployed (in a datacenter, in a private or public cloud, at the edge, etc. In EDA systems, events are used as the primary means of communication between different components, and an event mesh facilitates the exchange of information between microservices and applications in an event-driven manner.
What is an event portal?
An event portal is software that lets IT organizations more effectively create, share and manage event streams and event-driven APIs and applications as part of event-driven architecture. Much like API portals, event portals provide user interface and automation tools that accelerate and simplify the various processes associated with developing event-driven APIs and applications, and designing the flow of events in event-driven systems.
What is an event API?
An event API is the means by which developers can give the application they’re building access to data flowing as part of an event stream. Event protocols such as AMQP, MQTT, Webhooks and Websockets define the event exchange pattern – one can send or receive an event – but there is no standardized way to convey the intent or behavir. unlkike RESTful APIs. Therefore, it’s important to group events into well-documented event APIs.