Netsuite Salesforce Integration ESB vs Prebuilt Connectors

Question

Is there a benefit for using prebuilt connectors to and from SaaS billing platforms like Aria/Zuora when they live between Salesforce and Netsuite used as pure CRM and ERP/Acounting/Finance respectively. That is, versus using an ESB/Integration platform like Mulesoft or Boomi.

We are currently looking at changing billing and ERP systems and having them integrate together and with Salesforce CRM. So the chain would look like:

CRM -- Billing Solution -- ERP

Many of the billing systems have prebuilt connectors that work with ERP systems like Netsuite or Fusion, as well as connectors for Salesforce. Not to mention web service end points/APIs.

But there are integration vendors like Mulesoft and Boomi (basically Enterprise Service Bus PaaS providers) that also allow integration between the services.

I come from a SOA background and tend to favour a standalone ESB to connect the systems but due to my lack of familiarity with Saas ERP systems don't understand the benefits and pitfalls in the prebuilt connector vs ESB debate. I understand the concepts behind avoiding point to point integration, which would turn around to being a benefit for using ESBs. But is there a benefit for using prebuilt connectors within the SaaS platforms ... and are there serious downsides (my main concern).

Can anyone provide some insight here? I am not asking for "which one is best", just some real world experience good or bad that could help someone make these kinds of decisions.

Answer 1

I cannot provide a comprehensive comparison between the services you plan on using, but your question is quite interesting so I thought I'd share my thoughts and experience and hope you'll benefit from it.

Prebuilt connectors are not something new - they existed long before SaaS and iPaaS became a thing. So their pros and cons are still the same, the main issues you will be looking at are still very much related to the lack of flexibility you'll be facing and of course, the shortcomings of point-to-point integration. Things are somewhat refracted via the prism of SaaS/iPaaS but I believe that most aspects are still relevant.

Prebuilt Connector capabilities and support

You need to assess to what extent a prebuilt connector really covers the integration between the two systems. Services like salesforce take pride in their customizability and extensibility by using 3rd party extensions. In most cases the connector will be following a one-size-fits-all approach that only satisfies the most common and simple of all integration needs. It's all fun and games until something has to change. It is not possible to know in advance what you could need the future but think about it - would you be able to count on having your customisations and extensions covered by the prebuilt connector in case you decide to integrate them as well?

Another point you must consider is support - what happens if one of those companies decide to suddenly announce that they will stop supporting future integration via prebuilt connectors you are already using? You should check to see if there are any guarantees for you.

Tight Coupling and Service provider lock-in

Using point to point connectors will couple systems to each other so you’ll be severely limiting your options to switch between platforms if you need to at some point. It might seem a fairly simple integration scenario now, but adding more systems to the mix over time generally makes things even worse, since you are going to have dependencies here and there, and not every new system will have a connector out of the box to integrate easily with all the others you're already using. Having a middleware gives you the precious ability to map and transform data if needed, and maybe even apply some business logic that makes your life much easier (and cheaper). Also you'd be able to replace a system without having to replace others depending on it.

Consider your scenario: if you decide to change the billing system, you will have to find one that’s being properly supported by both the CRM and ERP providers. Thus, you could potentially remain locked into using exactly these three, even though for example they don’t fit your needs anymore or there is something else on the market that would have given you great competitive advantage if only you could integrate with it.

Orchestration and future investments

An important note about the p-2-p scenario is that you will not be able to implement process services that span across all the systems if needed. The added flexibility and benefits of using even simple forms of orchestration (I’m not even talking about achieving what can be achieved with a full featured business process management) will be off reach for your business. When the market changes and Time to Market is the deciding factor you may be not be prepared.

Thoughts on choosing iPaaS

Using iPaaS platform looks like a much better decision in the long run. Yet, you still have to make sure that the platform does not just give you some set of predefined connectors and drag&drop beauties (they all do), but also the ability to easily implement your very own integrations from scratch while supporting industry standards. I think that it is absolutely crucial to have this kind of flexibility when talking about an ESB solution, be it in the cloud or on premises.

The potential cons of the iPaaS approach would be:

• you come to depend on yet another service provider and you will have more costs because the service is not free;
• your data travels to another service provider, so there is additional risk in terms of security, no matter what the service providers may try to tell you;
• more upfront effort spent on design and implementation;
• additional burden, related to having to maintain integration and accommodate potential changes (however rare they might be) if a new version comes out.

Conclusion

It’s all really a tradeoff between desired flexibility and the investment that you’re willing to make. Your decision will heavily depend on the current state of your business and your growth expectations going forward, rather than the purely technical side of things.

I hope my thoughts gave your some perspective. Please update the question with your decision and reasoning when the time comes. Good luck!