Building a Future-Ready Integration Platform

Location: Bern, Switzerland

Industry: Chemical Manufacturing, Lubricant

Project Background

Allied Consultants partnered with the client to implement an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) application. The aim was to enable event-driven data synchronization between Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dataverse, and SAP-ERP. The project utilized Microsoft Azure iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) as the middleware solution, leveraging its capabilities to establish automated interactions and seamless communication between the different systems.

Challenges:

The client needed a reliable, secure, scalable, and maintainable integration platform to synchronize data between their systems and enforce data consistency across their operations. The client faced the challenges of:

Solutions:

Allied proposed the implementation of Blaser Cloud Integration services, utilizing Microsoft Azure iPaaS as the foundation. The key components of the solution included:

Model Driven Apps – Power Apps were used:
o As the entry point for business data
o To Integrate Dynamics CRM in Power Apps
Azure Logic Apps were used:
o For Data migrations from SAP to Dynamics CRM and Dataverse
o Transform and enrich data/messages to store in linked systems
o As a loosely coupled bridge to synchronize the data between the systems
o Schedule processes
Azure Service Bus
o As a message broker service and a staging storage
o For Implementing in-order delivery of messages and data
o Expose the Middleware for Systems to communicate

Azure Storage Accounts:
o Persistently store unstructured data and files
o Leverage out-of-the-box connection service to perform read-write operations from integration apps
Azure Log Analytics was used to:
o Get log run details of integration services
o Implement easy querying of logs for tracking purposes
o Have the overall system’s run history over a specific period of time
Azure DevOps was used to:
o Manage the code by version control in Azure Repos
o Build, test and deploy logic apps quickly
o Automate the process of continuous deployment to different environments

Results:

The implementation of Allied’s cloud integration services yielded significant results:

Successful Data Migration: The solution enabled seamless data migration from SAP-ERP to a single cloud data store, which could be utilized by Power Apps to build a custom web or mobile apps and by Power BI for reporting and analytics.
Real-Time Data Synchronization: The client achieved real-time, seamless data synchronization between SAP-ERP, Dynamics CRM, and Dataverse for different entities. This eliminated data silos and ensured consistent and up-to-date information across systems.
Future-Ready Solution: It provided a robust foundation for ongoing integration initiatives and supported the company's growth trajectory.