Software is now increasingly provided as a service; in other words, it is now offered as a hosted application that users access through Web browsers. Many companies see this as an effective way of outsourcing some of their IT requirements. However, they face an increasing number of integration issues as part of this strategy. Many are turning to ESBs for a solution.
As the use of Software as a Service (SaaS) increases, there is a growing realization that companies making use of SaaS applications need to integrate them within their overall IT infrastructure. This means that data needs to flow between the SaaS applications and their other IT systems. SaaS providers typically provide programmatic interfaces to facilitate this.
From the SaaS providers' perspective, there is a danger that the overhead of achieving such integrations could take away from the core values of the SaaS model.
