New Integration Framework in Camunda Platform 8.1 accelerates the development of reusable connectors to orchestrate end-to-end processes that span people, systems and devices
Process orchestration company Camunda introduced the latest release of Camunda Platform, which unveils a new integration framework that reduces the time and effort required to create and deploy reusable connectors.
Ongoing economic uncertainty is driving business leaders to continuously improve operations while delivering fast, seamless experiences. Automation is the path to achieve this desired transformation, but many organizations struggle to automate end-to-end processes due to process complexity and endpoint diversity. From ERPs and mainframe systems to e-commerce and the cloud, business processes rely on a combination of proven legacy or homegrown systems together with more innovative modern ones. While the BPMN open standard for graphical notation helps organizations automate advanced scenarios with elegance, endpoint diversity continues to slow down or even stop automation efforts before they realize value.
“An extreme outcome of letting automation initiatives run wild is a complex ‘bot spaghetti’ that is a nightmare to govern and creates long-term technical debt,” stated the May 2022 Forrester, Inc., report “Take The First Steps Toward An Automation Fabric.” The report continued, “Single-technology initiatives stagnate even after achieving scale, but diverse automation technologies synergize within an automation fabric to create transformational value.”
While task-based automation can help automate parts of a process, true end-to-end automation requires seamless orchestration of the people, systems, and devices that span real-world, complex processes. Camunda Platform solves this problem by expanding its connectivity ecosystem with new out-of-the-box connectors and a new integration framework that accelerates the creation of connectors that can then be reused in a low-code modeling environment.
Camunda accelerates connectivity with its latest release in three key ways:
- Out-of-the-box Connectors now available for Self-Managed and SaaS users, and include new additions for Slack, Google Drive, Amazon SQS, and AWS Lambda.
- New Integration Framework enabling teams to build their own reusable connectors
- Strategic partnerships with global system integrators who are building out connectors and rapidly developing the ecosystem.
“The majority of processes that our customers are orchestrating require multiple connections to outside systems, which is expensive to setup and maintain, especially with home-grown and legacy systems,” said Daniel Meyer, Camunda CTO. “Adding a framework for rapid development of connectors augments our out-of-the-box connectors and directly addresses the endpoint diversity challenge that organizations face today.”
Embracing endpoint diversity with Integration Framework
Camunda Platform’s Integration Framework consists of two components, Connector Templates and the Connector SDK. Developers use templates to define reusable properties of a connector; for example, custom input fields, field descriptions and validations, links to help documentation, and more. Design is aided by a powerful editing interface with live design preview, error highlighting, versioning, and easy publishing. The Connector SDK provides a simple, environment-agnostic approach to implementing custom Connectors across both SaaS and/or self-managed environments. Combining a Connector Template with code written against the SDK, developers can create modular, reusable connectors in minutes.
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Partnerships lays the foundation for extensive Connector ecosystem
This year Camunda provided early access to its new Integration Framework to a select number of global system integrators. Working closely with Camunda engineering, these SIs provided invaluable feedback, helping validate the scale and velocity at which Connectors can be developed. Partner developed Connectors will soon be available across a number of categories such as database, email, enterprise applications, and IT applications. With the framework, customers and partners can confidently connect and orchestrate all of the endpoints that comprise their complex business processes. GitHub will also serve as home for Connectors shared by and among the global Camunda community.
Improved troubleshooting, productivity, and deployment with the 8.1 release
In addition to the connectivity enhancements, the latest release also includes:
- Updates that allow process owners to modify and start processes at any flow node to test and resolve problems quickly as well aiding in migration from existing solutions.
- Updates that assist users in writing FEEL expressions during design-time
- Enhancements to our form designer to allow for dynamic population of fields from process data.
- New geo-regions for our SaaS customers and support for Openshift, Amazon EKS and hot backups for those running on their own cloud.