Practice 08
Systems Integration & Automation
We design and build the integration fabric of the enterprise — connecting systems, orchestrating intelligent automation and AI-augmented agents across event-driven, API-led and legacy-modernisation strategies.
Follow the architecture
Let events flow. Keep failures contained.
Follow an event across systems with different owners and failure modes. Reliable automation makes retries, permissions and reconciliation explicit.
Producer — Publish intent
A source system emits a business event or accepts a command. Define the difference clearly: an event records a fact; a command requests an action.
- Assign schema ownership
- Include a correlation identifier
- Avoid unnecessary sensitive fields
Gateway — Validate the boundary
Authenticate the sender and validate the contract before the message enters downstream processing. Protect consumers from unexpected volume and malformed inputs.
- Validate schemas and permissions
- Apply throttling and quotas
- Preserve correlation metadata
Broker — Decouple delivery
A broker separates producer availability from consumer processing. Choose ordering, delivery and retention guarantees that fit the business operation.
- Define delivery guarantees
- Set retention and replay limits
- Monitor backlog and dead letters
Workflow — Coordinate actions
Orchestrate steps with explicit retries and compensating actions. A partial failure must not silently leave systems disagreeing about business state.
- Make handlers idempotent
- Bound retries with backoff
- Design compensating actions
Reconcile — Confirm the outcome
Track the final business outcome across system boundaries. Reconciliation and exception queues make failures visible to operations teams.
- Compare source and target state
- Assign exception ownership
- Provide safe replay procedures
Hover, focus or tap a flow node to reveal the decisions behind it.
Architecture, explored
Security is a system. Not a checkpoint.
Design questions to resolve
Start with a boundary. Build the bigger picture.
These are illustrative patterns, not a description of a deployed client system or a guarantee of compliance. The right architecture depends on your constraints, risks and operating model.
From concept to implementation
Technical scope & design decisions
Explore the questions, techniques and potential outputs that can shape an engagement. Final scope depends on the requirements and evidence available.
01Enterprise Integration Architecture
Holistic enterprise integration architecture using modern API-led, event-driven and messaging patterns — replacing fragile point-to-point integrations with resilient, governed integration platforms.
Design & implementation focus
- Enterprise integration pattern selection: point-to-point, hub-and-spoke, ESB, API-led
- MuleSoft Anypoint Platform design and implementation
- Azure Integration Services: Logic Apps, Service Bus, APIM and Event Grid
- Apache Camel route design for complex mediation and transformation
- Legacy ESB modernisation and migration to cloud-native integration
- Integration governance: versioning, deprecation, catalogue and SLA management
- Error handling, dead letter processing and integration observability
- B2B integration with EDI, AS2, SFTP and partner onboarding frameworks
Potential engagement outputs
- Integration Architecture
- Pattern Catalogue
- Platform Design
- Governance Framework
- Monitoring Stack
- Migration Plan
02Workflow Orchestration
Enterprise workflow orchestration platforms that coordinate complex, long-running processes across systems, people, and AI agents — with full auditability and operational visibility.
Design & implementation focus
- Apache Airflow enterprise deployment on Kubernetes with MWAA or Astronomer
- Dagster asset-oriented orchestration for data and ML pipeline management
- Temporal workflow engine for long-running, durable process orchestration
- AWS Step Functions design for serverless workflow coordination
- Camunda BPM for human-in-the-loop and compliance workflow automation
- Workflow observability: execution history, alerting and SLA monitoring
- Multi-team DAG management with namespacing, RBAC and version control
- Workflow migration from legacy schedulers and cron-based orchestration
Potential engagement outputs
- Orchestration Platform
- DAG Library
- Monitoring Config
- Governance Model
- Migration Runbook
- Operator Guide
03ERP & CRM Integration
Enterprise-grade integration between ERP, CRM and cloud platforms — enabling a single source of truth, automated data flows, and seamless operational processes across SAP, Salesforce and Oracle.
Design & implementation focus
- SAP S/4HANA integration using SAP Integration Suite and BTP
- Salesforce API integration: REST, SOAP, Bulk API and Platform Events
- Oracle Fusion integration with OIC and REST-based microservices
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration with Azure Logic Apps and Dataverse
- Workday integration studio and EIB configuration for HR data flows
- Master data synchronisation with conflict resolution and golden record management
- Real-time event-driven integration replacing batch overnight processing
- Integration testing frameworks and regression suites for ERP change programmes
Potential engagement outputs
- Integration Design
- API Mappings
- Data Flow Diagrams
- Test Suite
- MDM Strategy
- Operations Guide
04Microservices Architecture
Domain-driven microservices architecture design and decomposition strategies — enabling independent deployability, team autonomy, and technological flexibility at scale.
Design & implementation focus
- Monolith decomposition strategy using strangler fig and parallel run patterns
- Bounded context design and domain event modelling with EventStorming
- Saga pattern implementation for distributed transaction management
- Transactional outbox pattern for reliable event publishing
- Service mesh implementation for secure service-to-service communication
- API gateway and BFF (Backend for Frontend) pattern design
- Microservice sizing guidance and team topology alignment
- Distributed system observability: correlation IDs, tracing and circuit breakers
Potential engagement outputs
- Domain Model
- Service Map
- Event Catalogue
- Saga Design
- API Specification
- Observability Setup
05Robotic Process Automation
Intelligent RPA programmes that automate repetitive manual processes — combining attended and unattended automation with AI-powered document processing and exception handling.
Design & implementation focus
- Process mining and discovery with Celonis, UiPath Process Mining or Minit
- RPA platform selection and centre of excellence (CoE) design
- UiPath Studio and Orchestrator enterprise deployment and governance
- Automation Anywhere A360 platform design and bot development
- Intelligent document processing with AI-powered OCR and extraction
- Attended automation design for human-in-the-loop process augmentation
- Bot performance monitoring, alerting and exception queue management
- RPA benefit realisation tracking and FTE displacement measurement
Potential engagement outputs
- Process Assessment
- Platform Design
- Bot Library
- CoE Framework
- Monitoring Setup
- Benefits Tracker
06Legacy System Modernisation
Structured legacy modernisation programmes that reduce technical debt, migrate mainframe and on-premises systems, and evolve monolithic applications toward cloud-native architectures.
Design & implementation focus
- Legacy system inventory, dependency mapping and modernisation scoring
- Mainframe migration assessment and COBOL to Java/Go conversion strategies
- Application portfolio rationalisation with TCO and risk analysis
- Strangler fig migration pattern with feature parity tracking
- Database modernisation from Oracle/DB2 to cloud-native equivalents
- Technical debt quantification and business-aligned remediation prioritisation
- Legacy API wrapping for incremental exposure to modern consumers
- Knowledge capture and documentation for undocumented legacy systems
Potential engagement outputs
- Legacy Assessment
- Modernisation Roadmap
- Migration Runbook
- Technical Debt Register
- API Wrapper Design
- Risk Register
07Event-Driven Architecture
Enterprise event-driven architecture design that decouples systems, enables real-time responsiveness, and creates a resilient, extensible backbone for digital ecosystems.
Design & implementation focus
- Event-driven architecture canvas and domain event identification
- CloudEvents specification adoption and event envelope design
- AsyncAPI-driven event catalogue and consumer contract management
- Event sourcing design with event store selection and projection management
- CQRS command and query model separation and consistency patterns
- Schema evolution strategy with backward and forward compatibility
- Event-driven saga orchestration and choreography pattern selection
- Cross-organisational event streaming with partner access governance
Potential engagement outputs
- Event Architecture
- Domain Event Catalogue
- Schema Registry
- AsyncAPI Specification
- Saga Design
- Governance Policy
08Low-Code & Process Automation
Strategic low-code and process automation capability that empowers business users while maintaining IT governance — accelerating the delivery of internal tools, workflows and applications.
Design & implementation focus
- Low-code platform selection and Centre of Excellence design
- Microsoft Power Platform governance: DLP policies, environment strategy and ALM
- Power Apps model-driven and canvas app design for business process automation
- Power Automate workflow design and approval chain implementation
- Mendix and OutSystems application development for complex enterprise scenarios
- Fusion team model: professional developers and citizen developers in collaboration
- Low-code security review and data governance policy enforcement
- Low-code ROI measurement and portfolio management dashboards
Potential engagement outputs
- Platform Strategy
- CoE Framework
- Governance Policies
- App Portfolio
- Security Review
- ROI Dashboard