An embedded integration platform, or embedded iPaaS, is a set of tools that enables a software company to quickly build reusable, configurable integrations and deliver them to its customers as a seamless part of its application ecosystem.
An embedded iPaaS is an end-to-end platform with everything SaaS companies need to build integrations, deploy them to customers, run them in production, and provide support.
Dovetail as an embedded integration platform?
Dovetail is very suitable for use as an embedded integration Platform as a Service. It is an easily scalable solution that can be used to integrate your software with any other application. Thanks to the no code, drag & drop interface, you won’t need any developers skills to build and maintain integrations in Dovetail.
Why choose an embedded iPaaS like Dovetail instead of building in-house?
The 3 main considerations are Cost, Infrastructure and Team.
Cost
The cost consideration consists of 2 parts; the initial cost for building the integrations and the cost involved in maintaining and improving them.
Building an integration takes on average 3 to 6 weeks of full time development – depending on the complexity of the integration. The salary of a developer is about＄30/hour, this brings the cost to＄3600 – ＄7200 to start with.
Once the integration is up and running it will still need attention. End-points can change, requirements of customers evolve over time. Integrations need maintenance and improvements.
When developed in-house this will continue to use up time of your developers. Developers often don’t take their own time, infrastructure costs and maintenance costs into account at the beginning of such a project.
If you choose to build in-house you have to consider whether you are taking away resources from solving critical product problems. You have to ensure that the core of your business will continue to operate.
When you rely on a proven solution like an embedded iPaaS, all of this can be handled by your integration specialist and your developers can continue to work on the core product you are offering.
Infrastructure
As already touched upon earlier; building inhouse might also have consequences for the requirements of your current IT infrastructure. Adding on it will affect the recurring cost and influence the maintenance requirements.
Besides adding on to your IT costs, management of it will have to be done by your developers.
Team
Another consideration is: does your team have enough knowledge to build an integration layer from scratch? Without the knowledge or experience, chances are that the building time will increase, which will add to the cost of the project.
If they decide to make use of existing (open source) integration projects, they will also have to follow the development of those projects and how it might affect the project specifically built for your application. Changes, upgrades, new versions might change the working of it.
Furthermore developers working on integration projects can’t spend time on your core product. Is it acceptable that it will slow down the roadmap of your core product?
Your team also has to be equipped to maintain the integration once it is built. For most developers this is not the most challenging task and therefore other, more interesting projects might take precedence with them. And you can’t really blame them; do you want to use your costly developers for tasks that could also be executed by non-developers like integration specialists or application managers?
Dovetail as your embedded iPaaS
Besides the fact that Dovetail is a very stable and scalable integration platform, it is also very accessible to use.
The drag & drop interface allows you to build integrations without needing to use any code. Therefore we call it a no code iPaaS. Thanks to the infinite canvas and the extensive library of opinionated components you don’t have to rely on developers to build the desired integrations.
Learn more about the Dovetail application?
