Firms at the moment need to leverage their information to help enterprise intelligence (BI) initiatives, however with out the correct information connectivity processes and instruments in place, that information may stay locked in silos. Enter the Progress DataDirect Hybrid Information Pipeline (HDP) connectivity resolution, which permits corporations to securely join cloud and on-premises information to BI instruments.
The HDP resolution cannot solely be used to attach information internally, however may also be utilized by SaaS distributors to attach third-party information and reporting instruments to allow them to ship extra worth to their clients.
For instance, Onit, an organization that helps corporations handle their authorized workflows, was discovering that clients usually would need to herald their very own reporting instruments, usually requiring customized work to set it up.
Onit made an funding within the HDP resolution as a means to have the ability to present extra advantages to its clients without having to consistently construct customized integrations. Thus, Onit began operating the Hybrid Information Pipeline resolution in its personal surroundings and gives a REST API interface—OData—to securely share hosted information with its clients and have these clients make the most of their very own reporting software program, defined Aaron Burg, Principal Gross sales Engineer at Progress.
“The great factor with REST APIs is you don’t must distribute something, and all of the BI instruments already know interface with it robotically,” mentioned Burg.
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MHC is one other buyer that has had success with utilizing the HDP resolution for connectivity. Its NorthStar doc automation platform is utilized by greater than 1,000 clients throughout a wide range of industries, together with monetary providers, healthcare, authorities, manufacturing and retail.
MHC started utilizing HDP information connectivity about three years in the past when it constructed a cloud model of the NorthStar platform. In response to Tom McMahon, Senior Architect of the platform at MHC, it was simple for purchasers who already saved their information within the cloud to modify to the cloud utility, however so as to help clients who solely hold their information on-premises, an answer was wanted to allow the cloud utility to get entry to that information.
“We determined to do a proof of idea on the Hybrid Information Pipeline resolution,” McMahon mentioned. “It was easy to arrange and get it up and operating. It seemed like it could handle many necessities with out a whole lot of work on our facet to combine into our system—and that’s once we determined to maneuver ahead with Progress.”
Dennis Bennett, Principal Gross sales Engineer at Progress, mentioned that a whole lot of these clients with on-premises information are in extremely regulated industries, and so utilizing Progress’ on-premises connector gives them with better confidence that their information is protected.
In response to Bennett, the DataDirect connector is a light-weight agent that will get put in behind the client’s firewall after which creates connections with the cloud-hosted model of the HDP resolution that MHC is operating. “It can all be outbound connectivity, so it’ll be initiated from that agent behind the firewall,” he mentioned.
In response to Burg, it’s simple to get began with a proof of idea utilizing Progress DataDirect’s free trial, and an organization might be up and operating with that in a matter of some hours.
“We provide you with free pre-sales help to get it operating, so there’s a low funding to attempt the HDP resolution and get a really feel for the way it works. You may select one or two of your clients and do a small pilot venture the place you get some suggestions from them to allow them to see that it’s helpful of their surroundings, and from there, you possibly can resolve if you wish to scale that out to a wider viewers,” Burg mentioned.