Enterprises deal with an ocean of data scattered across teams and locations, and needless to say, things can go haywire if it isn’t managed properly. To facilitate data management, enterprises are increasingly moving to the cloud to put data under one roof to make it easily accessible as well as secure. That said, to determine if this move is worth considering, it is important to understand the concept of cloud data integration in detail.

What is cloud data integration?
Cloud data integration is a system of tools and technologies that connects various repositories, systems, applications, and IT environments to facilitate data exchange in real-time. Once these elements are combined, the integrated cloud services and data can be accessed and shared over multiple devices via the internet.

What are some of the popular cloud data integration software?
Some of the well-known cloud data integration software in the industry are Zapier, Dell Boomi, Talend Open Studio, IFTTT, and Automate.io. Such software integrate cloud services and web applications, and they even sort the data without any coding or a complicated interface.

What are some common methods used in cloud data integration?
Cloud data integration can further be divided into cloud-to-on-premises and cloud-to-cloud integration, or it can even be a combination of both types. Such integrations can address varied business components, including applications and data.

• Applications
  This kind of integration ensures that various kinds of applications are connected, along with ensuring constant interoperability and functionality between them. This is more advanced as compared to data sharing as it involves issuing commands and requests so that business processes and events can occur.
• Data
  The data synchronization between several kinds of repositories happens here, and in this kind of integration, data can be transported, processed, and even transformed.

What is the purpose of cloud data integration?
In an official environment, there are several kinds of local as well as cloud resources, and the disparate elements of these resources must be sorted for better management. Cloud data integration forms the connection between disparate elements of local and cloud resources and puts them in a single environment accessible on several devices and platforms. This allows administrators to manage and access data, services, systems, and applications under one roof.

What are the benefits of cloud data integration?
Integrating data between cloud, cloud systems, and on-premise systems provides several benefits.

• Prevents duplication of data
  Integration helps in eliminating duplication of data that may occur when the same data is stored and copied for different organizational processes and applications.
• Data synchronization
  Integration ensures that the data can be accessed through several IT systems and applications. Also, the data constantly goes through frequent real-time updates.
• Integrations make data flexible and scalable
  Knowing the fact that processes might need improvement, cloud data integration opens data to changes, and new systems can be identified to add value.
• Automation
  Operational staff need not copy data or manually standardize how it is treated; instead, they can leave the hard work to cloud data integration, which automates such processes.

With the ever-increasing need for organizations to collect data from several sources, the need of the hour is to put all that data into one place, and that’s where cloud data integration technology comes in.