GLOSSARY

The practice of connecting applications, data stores, infrastructure, and business processes so they exchange information and operate as a coordinated system.

Well-designed integration reduces duplicate data entry, process delays, inconsistent records, and manual reconciliation. Poor integration creates fragile dependencies, hidden operational risk, and rising maintenance cost.

A company integrates its website, CRM, billing platform, and support system through documented APIs and events so account status changes propagate reliably and failures are retried and monitored.

Connecting systems does not guarantee semantic consistency or process alignment. Point-to-point integrations can become difficult to govern at scale, and tightly coupled interfaces amplify vendor changes and outages.

Integration may use APIs, events, message queues, middleware, file exchange, shared data platforms, or managed integration services. Design decisions include interface contracts, identity, data mapping, orchestration, error handling, idempotency, observability, versioning, and ownership. Patterns may be synchronous or asynchronous and point-to-point or mediated.