Cape Clear 7 ESB for SaaS
A 3rd party hosts the mediations
The third conceivable configuration is that the integrations are not hosted by either the client or the
SaaS provider, but rather by some trusted third party. This kind of model was envisaged some time ago
by so-called 2nd generation VANs such as Flamenco networks and Grand Central, but their ambition ran
somewhat ahead of the state of the technological art. This is now possible, modulo obviously needing
to define a suitable commercial model. We note in passing that only some subset of integrations, which
are 'strategic' in the sense of offering a path between common endpoints, is likely to warrant a
business in and of itself. So, for example, one can envisage that a SaaS vendor or 3rd-party integrator
could justify developing and hosting a SWIFT-to-FIX or an HRXML-to-EBXML mapping, but it is less likely
that absent a willingness to pay a significant premium I will be able to interest a 3rd party in
hosting the mapping from ‘my favourite internal format to the variant of HRXML that they use in HR'.
We note in passing that the same Cape Clear ESB product deployment is used in any of these scenarios: it can and does live on the client side, on the SaaS service provider side, and could also live 'in the cloud', being used to provide 3rd-party integration services.
