Can Low Code platforms replace traditional enterprise application integration platforms?
While digital transformation was one the priorities pre-pandemic, the pandemic has forced organizations to re-think their strategy and digital transformation has become the top priority as businesses try to survive while also look for new revenue opportunities as the new norm sets in. Enterprise application integration is at the core of digital transformation to quickly connect, transform and deliver business data to various systems, applications and end-users.
While RESTful API-based connectivity has become the new connect model, a number of low-code platforms that have surfaced are taking advantage of that in the rapid application development market.
A low-code platform is a full stack development platform. It comes with visual components for drag-and-drop, pre-built functionalities, process workflows and connectors for integrations with on-premise systems and applications and SaaS platforms and adds support for mobile app development. Low code platforms are designed for power users to create relatively simple business applications such as help desk support, travel and expense management, asset and loan management and require little or no coding. Many of these tools also offer support for full life cycle software management including deployment automation and promotes citizen developers. Their USP is developer productivity and improved time-to-market so organizations can focus on innovation and their business transformations.
Low code platforms offer REST API and Web Services connectors out of the box and other connectors through their marketplace. In terms of data models, these connectors support JSON, XML and WSDL. These connectors are used within the new application being developed to make direct connections to end-applications. For example, Mendix marketplace has SAP OData Service connector that can be used to retrieve data from SAP and populate the UI components. This is a direct interface between the application and SAP. In terms of data mapping, these platforms offer mapping features for JSON and XML.
Low Code Platforms use direct connections from within the application being developed to source/target applications that host business data. These platforms primarily depend on API-led connectivity for integrations which promotes point-to-point messaging between the application and the end systems. While direct interface is easier for simple integrations, for large number of source/target applications, it re-creates the same spaghetti problem which enterprise integration platform was designed to solve in the first place. Low code platforms cannot handle complex integration scenarios in terms of data transformations, protocol mediations, API orchestrations and security issues.
Enterprise integration platforms are middleware platforms designed to broker interactions between systems and applications. They support variety of transports and protocols along with rich set of connectors which includes technology connectors and connectors for ERP and SaaS products and platforms. They use flow-based toolkit for development of integration services and support common runtimes such as java, .NET, XSLT, PHP, etc. These platforms are designed to handle any-to-any connectivity and any-to-any data transformations and not just limited to JSON and XML. They offer other message processing features such as message routing, data aggregation and sequencing among others. These platforms are built to handle high throughput transactions and fast response times and are not application development platforms.
In conclusion, low code platforms are designed for power users to create simple to medium business applications with little or no coding and doesn’t handle complex integration scenarios. Low code platforms simplify and accelerate application development and integration platforms offer complementary messaging and brokering services.
A comparison of two platforms is provided in the table below.
