Enterprise Integration in Actions

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Feature name: Integration
Readiness: high
Development Effort: low

Overview

In digital transformation, B2B and B2C E-Commerce applications are only one element in the business ecosystem but they should work together as one solution.

Virto Commerce provides Open REST API for integration with ERP, PIM, CRM, etc. and supports easy connection via modern Integration Middleware, like Azure Logic App or Dell Boomi.

Key Principles:

  • Seamless Integration.
  • Point-to-Point Integrations Are Evil.
  • Use Integration Middleware.

Business Processes:

  • Sync E-Commerce orders with an ERP system.
  • Sync back the ERP Order statuses and Invoices with E-Commerce.
  • Import the Catalog master data from PIM to E-Commerce.
  • Prepare the content in CMS and publish to E-Commerce.
  • Implement approval process for documents, invoices, budgets, and purchase orders.
  • Launch two different E-Commerce solutions (Legacy and Virto Commerce) together without crashing the business process.
  • Incremental update and smooth migration from the Legacy system.

Seamless Integration

Easy to expand – A business can choose to implement the integration of own ERP solution with Virto Commerce and when a new application is ready all they need to do to incorporate it into the infrastructure is hook it up to the bus.
Incremental adoption – the design offers unique flexibility and allows for incremental adoption as resources become available.
Scalable and distributable – the integration should be scalable together with E-Commerce and distributable between different instances, like DEV, QA, STAGE and PROD.

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Point-to-Point Integrations Are Evil

Quick peer-to-peer (P2P) integrations can turn into a large headache. When your infrastructure only has a few components. P2P integration can seem like a lightweight way to connect everything.

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  • Number of components increases exponentially as additional systems are added
  • Difficult to trace security breaches or audit who has access to sensitive data
  • Build new or enhance integrations to access and/or update data.
  • Limited Capabilities if we want to add a new system
  • Very difficult to support and teams become increasingly afraid to make changes due to the unknown downstream impacts the change may have

Virto Commerce recommends to use integration middleware.

Use Integration Middleware

The integration middleware helps reduce and manage:

  • Security Concerns – the middleware is central governance for data security and compliance
  • Budget Constraints – when delivering a new application or new system to the enterprise, it’s easy to extend workflow and new items into the pipeline. No development efforts and hidden integration cost.
  • Unlimited Capabilities – the middleware is described in open JSON-format, no-hardcoding business rules or data-transformation. A lot of ready to use connections with databases, messaging services, data services, applications and network protocols.
  • Supportability & Scalability - the middleware has out of box asynchronous processing, versioning, retry policy, error handling, monitoring, alerts and logging.

List of all connectors

This section summarizes key information of all connectors:

References

Virto Commerce API
Integrate Virto orders with external systems via Logic Apps
Virto Commerce Architecture Reference in Azure
Sample Microsoft Logic Apps application to show how to integrate VirtoCommerce platform with external services and how to handle Logic Apps exceptions
Microsoft Logic Apps application sample to show how to integrate VirtoCommerce platform with SAP

Keywords

Logic Apps, Dell Boomi, Integration Middleware