Boomi burnishes API management capabilities

Middleware vendor Boomi has bolstered its API management capabilities with new products and acquisitions. The Boomi AI Agent Framework allows the automation of repetitive application integration administration tasks.

The launch version of the framework comes with four agents. Boomi Answers uses AI to offer prescriptive help in response to natural language prompts. The second product, Boomi DataDetective, offers a mechanism to classify data fields, track where data is being moved, and protect personal information.

A third agent, Boomi DesignGen, is geared towards autonomously building integrations. Another use of AI technology comes in the form of Boomi Scribe, software that automatically documents both existing and built-by-AI integrations.

A second product, Boomi DataHub, also launched during the Boomi World conference this week, allows organizations to manage the information that underpins AI and data analytics projects.

Boomi’s iPaaS (integration-platform-as-a-service) technology creates a platform that allows organizations to move data between different cloud-based applications, databases, and other workloads.

Programs exchange data through application programming interfaces (APIs).

AI-driven orchestration

Boomi Answers moves the vendor into offering AI-driven orchestration via AI agents, said Forrester Principal Analyst, David Mooter.

“This goes beyond the rigid integration of where IT builds fixed flows with boxes and lines,” according to Mooter. “It’s about having AI fluidly orchestrate tasks on the fly based on natural language prompts.”

According to Mooter, an AI-orchestration platform will require four components: data management to feed quality data into AI models, an integration capability to collect that data and to build orchestrations for AI agents to execute, event streaming to trigger AI agents, and APIs for AI agents to tap into.

“Boomi has all of those capabilities, but the API component is currently Boomi’s weakest link,” according to Mooter.

Acquisitions

Boomi is buying in expertise in order to bolster its technology offering in the field of AI orchestration.

During its conference, Boomi announced the acquisition of the federated API management business from APIIDA AG. It also bolstered the scalability and security of its platform by acquiring API management assets — the former Mashery product — from Cloud Software Group.

Forrester’s Mooter said that Boomi’s acquisitions addressed a growing market need. “Boomi’s acquisition of APIIDA makes sense,” according to Mooter. “The need for an API control plane across multiple types of API gateways is a strong need”.

APIDA product specializes in federated API management across many gateway vendors. “This acquisition gives Boomi a distinctive feature that the buyer market needs but vendor market isn’t providing,”  Mooter said.

Forrester survey data shows managing multiple vendor gateways is a top challenge for API programs and also a sought-after feature request but “yet the API management market largely offers nothing,” according to Mooter.

The two deals strengthen the API management capabilities of Boomi’s platform, furthering its mission of simplifying enterprise software and facilitating intelligent automation and integration.

Boomi competes with the likes of MuleSoft. Although MuleSoft offers more advanced customization capabilities Boomi scores by offering a cloud-native architecture and unified capabilities.

The iPaaS market is being driven by the need to integrate enterprise applications, data sources, and cloud services across organizations. Offering seamless integration across hybrid environments poses a challenge for iPaaS vendors and customers.

By integrating AI and machine learning technologies, iPaaS vendors aim to simplify integration building and save customers money by automating repetitive tasks.

Other players in the market include Informatica, SnapLogic, and Tibco, as well as products from enterprise software such as SAP and Oracle.