I'm a Solution Architect with ThirdEye Consulting, I've been working in the Salesforce ecosystem for 9 years and I'm a certified System and Application Architect. I was fortunate enough to attend the System Architect Bootcamp during Dreamforce. It provided me with a wealth of information about integrations I didn't be aware of when I was there. I've attempted to give here a summary of what I learnt, however, it is geared towards data replication solutions professionals who are new to this.

My aim is not to show you how to incorporate each step. Instead, my goal is to give you a general overview of the concepts involved in integration that allow you to progress to more intricate aspects. There are three main areas to be covered: integration types, capabilities, and patterns. First, let's look at an examination of the basics.

What is Salesforce Integration?

Salesforce Integration is the process of connecting two or more of your systems together. This allows you to streamline separate processes.

Take into consideration the situations within your technology stack in which data is kept in one system but needed in another. Through integrating them, you can easily manage all that information through different business processes that operate across multiple systems.

Why is integration so important?

We are living in the digital age and we constantly need to enhance our efficiency as well as our customers' experience to remain competitive it's rare that a system works on its own. We need to become more adept and efficient in integration of our systems so we can accomplish this quicker and in a more scalable manner.

What exactly is an API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface. It lets two programs communicate with each other.

When you use an app on your smartphone it connects to Internet, pulls information from a server, and the app presents it in a readable format. This entire process should run smoothly if you use the right API.

There are various types of APIs which I will cover later in the 'Salesforce Integration Capabilities' section.

Types of Salesforce Integration Architectures

Each kind of integration architecture has many advantages as well as drawbacks that are worth noting. Three kinds I'll discuss:

Point-to-Point Integration

Point-to-point integration is also known as one-to-one integration. It sends a message via a 1-1 relationship another system. Imagine you have an application for sales that transmits new orders to a billing system, to an application for shipping and to a tracking system all separately as a separate integration. If you want the tracking and the shipping to communicate, then this is an additional integration that has to be setup.

This kind of integration comes with many cons. The integration type is costly to create and maintain. If you have to replace a system, you will need several new integrations in order for it to connect with the other systems.

Hub-and Spoke Integration

With hub-and-spoke integration you can have a central hub system that facilitates communication between systems. The hub is in charge of routing all traffic. You only need to establish one connection for each system, which is a big improvement over point-to point integration.

Enterprise Service Bus Integration (ESB).

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is the next step in hub and spoke architecture of integration model. The difference is the integration engine used to establish connections between connected systems and software applications.

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