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With the recent rise in accessible public clouds, enterprises now have a plethora of highly scalable, dynamic, and powerful resources accessible on demand.

For some organizations, though, separate resources and services can hinder an administrator’s ability to maintain order and consistency within each resource, known as software silos. This struggle can force administrators to perform duties manually, which takes significantly longer. The solution to break down these software silos is cloud-to-cloud integration.

What is Cloud-to-Cloud Integration?

Cloud-to-Cloud Integration (C2I) is the process of connecting different cloud computing platforms into an integral whole. Once connected, these clouds operate in a single environment such that administrators can access all resources.

Cloud-to-cloud integration breaks down these software silos by managing applications and data from systems all in one place. Accessing data and managing applications, systems, and services all become significantly smoother with cloud-to-cloud integration.

Types of Cloud-to-Cloud Integration

You can accomplish cloud-to-cloud integration through two primary methods. It is important to choose the method that best suits your needs.

• Mediation works by recognizing an event in one platform and then triggering a response to another connected application.
• Federation acts as a front-end, where the cloud integration platform processes events from outside the applications and then triggers corresponding actions.
• Hybrid Mediation and Federation combines mediation and federation. Mediation handles actions between applications, and federation handles actions from outside connected applications.

C2I can function either synchronously or asynchronously depending on the process. Through asynchronous C2I processes, data and commands are communicated without a response from the receiving application. Synchronous integration, however, waits for a response from the receiving application, ensuring that all applications are up-to-date and synchronized before proceeding.

• Data integration is a common form of cloud integration that aims to synchronize data between stores.
• Application integration is when two or more services can share commands, states, requests, and other mechanisms for processes.

Cloud-to-Cloud Integration Challenges

It is important to note that C2I does not explicitly change data or modify applications. Rather, it synchronizes data across an enterprise. This process can automate complex workflows, eliminate redundant data, and improve efficiency. When setting up cloud-to-cloud integration, however, keep in mind a couple of elements to ensure all runs smoothly. 

1. Communication Methods Diversity: There is no single method of cloud-to-cloud integration. Different resources, applications, and services use various communication methods, which can make it difficult to maintain the necessary connectors to ensure communication between cloud and local environments. 
2. Data Control Considerations: When entrusting the cloud with data, keep in mind that you give up some control. For this reason, it is important to communicate often with cloud vendors to ensure that data will be accessible and that you can work around scheduled downtimes.
3. Complexity Increase: As more applications join the cloud, the environment becomes increasingly complex. Communicating between cloud applications is therefore essential. You might need other back-end systems to ensure your systems can communicate with each other. Using a central integration platform can provide capabilities to ensure you can accomplish data mapping.
4. Data Security and Encryption: How you secure and encrypt your data can make a big difference. Keeping your data in the cloud does add some additional security vulnerability, so choosing a cloud vendor that offers strong security measures, both for industry and government, is crucial. 
5. Pre-Migration Testing: Migrating your applications to the cloud has immense potential. But for this reason, it can be a drawback if you do not conduct proper testing. Set aside substantial time for pre-migration testing to troubleshoot issues beforehand. Working with IT to handle migration over a longer period, rather than transitioning all at once, is essential. 
6. Modern Integration Platforms: Modern integration platforms feature all the necessary API tools, data transformation capabilities, and data movement protocols to ensure interoperability between cloud platforms. Through cloud-to-cloud integration, businesses’ application management will become further simplified and more easily managed. C2I can break down software silos by allowing the team to collaborate regardless of what service they use.

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