The importance of integration in a world of MACH

The importance of integration in the world of MACH, and how it’s made easy? Yes, after a fashion. The MACH approach aims to yield many of the benefits of traditional integration without the tremendous cost and complexity involved. 

Integration as a (Better) Way of Life

While MACH aims high, it also sets a high bar. Companies practising or implementing MACH – Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless (or Composable) — ultimately need to check each of those boxes.

And that’s why integration via a Digital Integration Hub is important and a step toward the organisational maturity needed for MACH success. The importance of integration is in its ability to move an organisation toward best-of-breed and best-in-class solutions and decoupling technology into packaged business capabilities. Put another way, old practices of point-to-point integration need to be faster and more labour-intensive for the needs of today, especially as the MACH movement picks up speed. Integrating existing systems and unifying data, though, can be a step forward that makes MACH far more achievable. 

In this scenario, MACH shapes new technology implementations. It permeates practice whenever possible, but it doesn’t need to “rip and replace” because a Digital Integration Hub can put in place a high level of integration as a starting point – and do so with minimal effort in a short period of time.

Through Xiatech’s composable Hyper-Integration Platform, Xfuze, the Digital Integration Hub, is a way to get actionable insights – to make all data more transportable – so that all existing business systems and applications can better communicate and do so in real-time. It provides a baseline of performance and success for MACH implementation.

Adopting MACH principles as a next step reinforces best-in-class, API-first thinking and can help create a modern tech stack – finally escaping from the monolithic systems of the past.

Starting with a more integrated baseline has many advantages. For instance, data is much more discoverable when the pathways to it are uncluttered. When you have a higher-level baseline, you can begin the investment in metadata to make datasets more useful and findable.

Similarly, getting data or content where it is needed – say, a refresh of an e-commerce platform is much easier to achieve when an integration platform has gotten all assets communicating with each other.

And, of course, integration makes it possible to achieve and maintain a “single version of the truth.” In the absence of integration, silos persist or are born anew. All organisations have enough trouble managing data without letting it devolve into less valuable forms. Integration sooner (now!) brings many benefits going forward.

Silos tend to veer from agreed-upon standard. Taxonomy and tags fade away in silence. It can lead to higher costs and more work later on. 

Xiatech is committed to MACH Alliance and believes MACH is the future. A MACH-oriented integration platform is a smart first step and a wise investment.

Get your systems MACH-ready. The sooner, the better.

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