Integration Strategy: Enterprise Service Bus vs. Point-To-Point

No software is ever going to meet all the needs of your business - you’ll need multiple tools. Integrating these disparate but still interrelated systems makes accessing data easier; it helps to streamline your processes and makes teams more efficient. For example:

• Marketing processes live in HubSpot

• Billing processes live in NetSuite

• Support processes live in Zendesk

• Sales reps benefit from seeing campaign engagement, customer financials and open support cases directly within Salesforce CRM

When planning to integrate systems, one of the first decisions you should make is how you will structure your integrations. This decision is important because it will influence the tools you use to create and manage your integrations. Two commonly chosen strategies are Point-To-Point and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

Point-To-Point

With point-to-point integrations, each system is directly connected to every other system it needs to transfer information to. This is often the simplest method of implementing an integration for two systems.

As the number of systems increases, the number of connections between systems will also increase because systems have to be directly connected.

Advantages

• Simplicity: The point-to-point structure is beneficial when creating simple integrations with a limited number of systems. Point-to-point is a valid strategy if your integration needs are basic, the number of systems you need to connect are minimal, and your integration requirements do not change often.

• Native Pre-Built Connectors: Many industry leading platforms provide pre-built connectors (ex: Hubspot-to-Salesforce) which allow a team to create a connection between systems quickly without the need for custom development. These types of connectors are limited in their capabilities but if they meet your company’s needs, utilizing them will be cheaper and faster than creating a custom point-to-point integration or implementing an ESB.

Disadvantages

• Limited Scalability: The point-to-point integration model is limited in scalability. If you want to connect a Salesforce org, ERP system, marketing system, and field service management system, a separate connection needs to be created between each system. This means that over time as your integration needs evolve, the number and complexity of your integrations will likely increase and become more difficult to manage.

  Look at how many lines there are!

Examples: Direct connections between any 2 systems (e.g., Salesforce ←→ NetSuite)

Enterprise Service Bus

With an ESB, systems are connected via a centralized platform. The ESB facilitates the exchange of data without requiring systems to be connected directly with each other.

Advantages

• Scalability: ESBs are more scalable because the addition of new systems does not require additional direct connections to be created. The systems connect to the ESB which transforms and routes the data to the correct place.

• Reusability: ESBs allow integration logic and data transformation activities to be used across multiple systems. For example, logic for accessing certain data out of Salesforce could be written once but used by multiple systems.

• Flexibility: ESBs allow for diverse systems to be connected with each other. The ESB can handle the transformation of data so that information can be shared between systems seamlessly.

• Maintainability: ESBs reduce the number of direct connections providing a centralizedplace to monitor all integrations.

Disadvantages

• Skill Requirements: If your team is used to point-to-point integrations, a shift in how they think about integrations will be required. The team must be comfortable with service-oriented architecture principles to successfully implement and manage an ESB.

• Bottleneck: Depending on how the ESB is implemented and structured, bottlenecks can occur since the ESB acts as the centralized place that all data passes through. To ensure efficiency, the ESB should be carefully designed, and the management team should be equipped to make timely changes. 

Examples: MuleSoft, Apache Camel, IBM Integration Bus

How to Decide

There is a lot to consider when choosing between point-to-point integrations or using an ESB. This decision tree will help you evaluate which strategy is right for you:

Interested in learning more about MuleSoft or Cloud Giants? Check out the “Getting Started With MuleSoft” guidebook, or leave us an inquiry here to discuss how we can assist with your next Salesforce Project.

About Author

Grant Mangum is a Technical Consulting Manager at Cloud Giants. He holds 10 Salesforce certifications including MuleSoft Developer I, Application Architect, and CPQ Specialist.  You can connect with him on LinkedIn.