Integration Fundamentals
Essential concepts and principles for building robust integrations
Beyond specific transport mechanisms and integration patterns, there are fundamental architectural principles that apply to all integration projects. Understanding these concepts will help you build more robust, maintainable, and scalable integrations.
Why Fundamentals Matter
When building integrations, you'll face common challenges regardless of the specific technologies or patterns you choose:
- How do you determine which system owns which data?
- What happens when two systems try to update the same record simultaneously?
- How do you ensure operations can be safely retried?
- How do you manage changes over time?
These integration fundamentals address these core challenges and help you build more resilient solutions.
Key Fundamental Concepts
API
Foundation of communication between systems in modern integrations
Authentication
Securing data and access across system boundaries
Source of Truth
Establishing authoritative data sources and managing data ownership
Data Mapping and Schema Evolution
Managing data structure differences and changes over time
Idempotency Design
Creating operations that can be safely repeated without side effects
Concurrency Control
Handling simultaneous updates across integrated systems
Transactional Boundaries
Managing consistency when operations span multiple systems
Change Tracking Strategies
Detecting and tracking changes across integrated systems
Error Handling Architecture
Building resilient systems that handle failures gracefully
Applying Fundamentals to FileMaker
FileMaker-based integration solutions benefit greatly from careful attention to these fundamental principles:
- Planning: Identify potential issues before they become problems
- Design: Create more maintainable and scalable architectures
- Implementation: Build with resilience and future changes in mind
- Maintenance: Reduce technical debt and ease system evolution
Throughout this section, we'll explore how these concepts apply specifically to FileMaker integrations, with practical examples you can implement in your own solutions.