Survey Findings & Recommendations: Where Does Liaison Align?

Gartner's 2015 survey of 348 organizations on their data integration tools deployments, satisfaction levels, and future plans yields some interesting insights. Next we've highlighted several key takeaways – and resulting recommendations.

51% of respondents do not use data integration tools and platforms to support big-data-related use cases

Gartner recommendation: Extend, rather than replace, your current data integration tools and architectures to support big data environments with the same functions that are used in traditional environments, so as to make fuller use of investments you have already made.

Liaison agrees: Our cloud-based ALLOY platform supports the unified integration, data management, and storage operations required for big data use cases of all sizes. Additionally, our Embrace & Extend program is specially designed to allow organizations to preserve their investments in traditional solutions while gradually incorporating the big data and cloud integration operations so critical in today's data landscape.

45% of respondents do not use their existing data integration tools to interoperate with application integration tools

Gartner recommendation: Assess whether you are exploiting the potential advantages of converging data integration and application integration. Prioritize effort and investment in the overlapping areas. This should result in shared skills and improved ROI, and make it easier to manage vendors.

Liaison agrees: Not to only do synergies (and redundancies) exist between integration patterns (e.g. data integration and application integration), but between the disciplines of integration and data management as well. Our ALLOY platform unifies all of these operations to make the most efficient use of your resources; reduce vendor management responsibilities; and ensure that integrated, cleansed, and harmonized data is available to your organization whenever and wherever it is needed.

Almost 60% of respondents report that they do not plan to adopt iPaaS or other similar cloud-based integration approaches

Gartner recommendation: Adoption of cloud-based integration approaches such as integration platform as a service (iPaaS) continues to grow, with almost 23% of the respondents reporting that they use this capability in some capacity (up from 20% last year). However, on-premises deployments are still the most popular choice, with almost 60% of the respondents reporting that they do not plan to adopt iPaaS or other similar cloud-based integration approaches. This means they will miss out on the potential advantages that cloud delivery models for data integration tools can bring to organizations. These include scalability, elasticity and a significantly reduced entry-level cost of deploying data integration infrastructure.

Liaison agrees: Cloud-based integration approaches offer many advantages over traditional, on-premises solutions. And may we suggest you start your research with dPaaS (Data Platform as a Service)? dPaaS is a cloud delivery model for data integration that provides PaaS functionality at the data layer. In this model, integration and data management operations are provided as fully managed services to allow organizations to focus on the analysis of data after it's been transparently integrated, aggregated, cleansed and delivered to the point of decision.

25% of respondents are dissatisfied with their vendor's pricing method

Gartner recommendation: Evaluate data integration tool vendors that offer flexible and easily understood pricing methods, such as subscription-based and named-user plans for new requirements.

Liaison agrees: Liaison's ALLOY Platform offers an innovative new transparent pricing model. No transaction counting or kilo-character fees – just easy-to-understand subscription levels based on solution complexity.