According to Gartner Technical Professionals analyst Matt Brasier, the answer is a definite ‘yes.’
He explained: “First of all, integration specialists will still need to do all of the hard bits of integration; the bits at the back end where you don’t have a REST API exposed by the system because it’s a 15-year-old ERP system that only communicates with CSV files over FTP, or something like that. There will be legacy systems that you won’t be getting rid of in the short term that need to be integrated. There will also be a whole set of best practices and governance that is needed. One of the models I recommend to clients when they’re looking to do this Agile integration is that they create the role of an integration architect, who works with an Agile delivery team in the same way that a security architect or a data architect would. They’re there to provide best practices, to peer review what’s going on and to provide governance as an internal part of that team, if only part-time, based on best practices from their peer group of integration specialists, rather than it being an external review board that you submit things to.”
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He went on to say that specialists are still need to provide best practices, governance, oversight and training to assist ad-hoc integrators, who are not as well-versed in integrations. Brasier said, “Maybe they don’t know patterns like circuit breakers; maybe they are not aware of the finer details of some of the SOAP specifications and things like that, where there still might be a need to help.”
