According to ONEiO's State of Integration Solutions 2025 report, the average organization now manages over 100 SaaS applications, with large enterprises routinely handling 250-500+ applications. 

With over 900 integration software solutions now available in the market, choosing the right data integration approach has become increasingly important.

What's the solution? Modern data integration services. They connect your systems automatically. No complex manual projects. No expensive platform costs.

This article covers what you need to know so you can make a smart decision.

What are data integration services?

Data integration services connect your business apps automatically. They move data between business applications in real-time. No manual copying of data is needed.

Think about this: You don't copy data from ServiceNow to Salesforce by hand. You don't update financial systems one by one. Data integration services do it for you. They create automatic data flows. All your systems stay in sync.

With the right data integration service our apps talk to each other without manual work.

What are data integration service providers?

These are the companies that make data integration happen.

There are three main forms of data integration service providers:

• iPaaS platforms:
  They give you tools to build connections yourself. 
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• System integrators:
  They build connections for you as projects. 
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• Managed integration services:
  Solutions like ONEiO that combine advanced software and turnkey solutions into a managed service. 

Typical challenges with data integration services

Every IT service provider faces the same integration headaches:

• Time drain:
  Your technical team wastes a lot of their time maintaining integrations instead of focusing on strategic initiatives that grow your business.
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• Unpredictable costs:
  Data Integration projects consistently run over budget and timeline, making it complicated to plan your finances or promise delivery dates to customers.
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• Fragile connections:
  When vendors update their APIs or authentication methods, your data integrations break, often at the worst possible moment.
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• Challenges scaling:
  Adding new customers or services means rebuilding data integration logic from scratch, creating bottlenecks that slow your growth.
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• Resource constraints:
  You either hire expensive data integration specialists or watch your existing team struggle with technical debt that never goes away.

How data integration services work

Data integration services use software and smart processes to automate data connections between your IT systems. They operate through automated workflows that monitor system changes, transform data formats, and route information to the right destinations. 

When a customer submits a service request in your portal, data integration services ensure that the request appears in your ITSM platform, triggers billing updates, and notifies the right team members, all without manual intervention.

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The old way of data integration services

In the traditional approach to building data integrations by yourself, businesses must go through several stages before realizing any business value. 

Each step requires investment in time, expertise, and budget. These steps are: 

1. Data requirements:
   The process begins with identifying what data needs to be integrated. IT and business stakeholders define data integration goals, data sources, and expected outcomes.
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2. Technical specification:
   A detailed specification document is created, outlining how systems will share data, what data formats will be used, and how data security and compliance will be maintained.
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3. Data pipeline development:
   Custom data integrations must be developed, often requiring weeks or months of coding, testing, and troubleshooting data flows between systems.
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4. Data integration implementation:
   Once development is complete, the data integration is deployed and tested in a live environment with real data sources.
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5. Data integration support & maintenance:
   After deployment, ongoing support is required to fix data quality issues, apply security patches, and adapt to changing data structures and business systems.
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6. Business value:
   After investing time and resources, businesses finally determine whether the data integration delivers real value. 

The problem with the old way

The old way of managing data integration services creates several problems:

• High upfront costs with ongoing data maintenance expenses that balloon over time
• Long implementation timelines that delay access to critical business data and customer insights
• Vendor lock-in, where only the original data integration provider can modify data flows or fix data issues
• Technical debt that accumulates as data sources, formats, and business requirements change
• Single points of failure when data integrations break during critical reporting or decision-making periods

The new way: Integration Ops

Integration Operations (IntOps) transforms data integration services from one-time projects into continuously managed operational functions. 

Instead of building data pipelines and walking away, IntOps providers operate them 24/7, monitoring data flows and adapting to changes automatically.

🔔 Are integrations your core business? Watch my video to find out how we at ONEiO can help your business with IntOps

Benefits of integration ops:

• Predictable data operations:
  Traditional data integration projects suffer from cost overruns and unexpected maintenance fees that can exceed your budgets. Integration Ops eliminates this uncertainty with fixed monthly costs that replace unpredictable project fees and emergency data maintenance charges.
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• Faster time-to-insights:
  Conventional data integration services require months of custom development and testing before delivering any value. Integration Ops accelerates this timeline. Data integration services go live in days or weeks instead of months, providing immediate access to critical business data and customer insights.
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• Automatic data adaptation:
  Traditional data integrations break when vendors change data formats, APIs, or authentication methods, requiring expensive custom fixes. With Integration Ops, your data integrations adapt automatically without breaking your data flows, eliminating costly downtime and emergency repairs.
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• Reduced data management overhead:
  Standard data integration approaches force your technical team to spend a lot of their time maintaining data pipelines and troubleshooting quality issues. Integration Ops frees your team to focus on analyzing data and delivering insights instead of managing data integration failures and technical problems.
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• Scalable data growth:
  Legacy data integration models require rebuilding infrastructure from scratch for each new data source or customer. Integration Ops provides a scalable architecture where adding new data sources or customers doesn't require rebuilding the data integration infrastructure, enabling rapid business growth.

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Integration Ops is the next evolution in ITSM, enabling AI-driven automation, predictive issue resolution, and no-code integration configuration. 

ONEiO is at the forefront of this transformation, ensuring your integration operations are future-ready, automated, and scalable.

Why ONEiO is the ideal data integration partner for IT service management

ONEiO provides Data Integration Ops as a comprehensive managed service tailored specifically for IT and technology service providers. While conventional data integration providers build custom solutions and disappear, or iPaaS platforms require you to master complex data integration tools, ONEiO manages your data integrations as a continuous operational service.

With ONEiO Integration Ops, IT service providers benefit from:

• Fully automated lifecycle management: ONEAI® ensures data integrations adapt to changes without manual intervention, eliminating operational bottlenecks.
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• No-code integration: It allows process owners to manage data integrations effortlessly, without technical complexity.
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• Scalable and flexible approach: Data integration operations scale as your business grows, removing complexity from expansion.
  
  
• Reduced costs and faster time-to-value: Predictable subscription-based pricing replaces unpredictable project costs and lengthy implementations.

The future of data integration services

Three key trends will reshape how you approach data integration:

Integrations as a managed service

ITSM leaders are recognizing that the cost and effort of managing integrations is better handled by experts. This frees up centralized IT team resources and enables better service management.

Leverage no-code integration

You can use visual workflow builders to define integration requirements without technical programming knowledge. This approach reduces your dependence on scarce technical resources while accelerating your time-to-value.

Embrace Integration Ops

You should shift from project-based to operations-based integration models. This mirrors the evolution from traditional IT to DevOps. When you adopt Integration Ops, you gain sustainable competitive advantages through improved agility, reduced costs, and enhanced reliability.

The bottom line on data integration services

Successful IT service providers recognize that integration excellence directly impacts customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and business growth. 

Integration Ops represents the evolution beyond traditional project-based approaches and do-it-yourself platforms. 

By partnering with a managed integration service provider like ONEiO, you eliminate integration bottlenecks while focusing your team's expertise on delivering exceptional IT services.

Ready to transform your data integration strategy? 

Discover how ONEiO's Integration Ops approach can accelerate your service delivery and reduce operational complexity. Your customers (and your team) will thank you.