Glossary · System coordination, integration and orchestration
Integration service
Also known as: integration microservice, adapter service
German: Integrationsdienst
In systems integration, an integration service is a software service that performs a specific integration task, such as connecting to a system, transforming data, synchronizing records or exposing a system's functions through a standard interface.
- System integration
In one sentence
An integration service performs one specific integration task, such as connecting to a system, transforming data or exposing functions via an API.
Example
A small integration service polls the legacy quality database every minute and publishes new inspection results as events for the MES.
How it applies
- Engineering: Small, focused integration services are easier to test and deploy than one large integration application. Each needs monitoring, logging and a defined owner.
- AI integration: Integration services increasingly expose plant and documentation data to AI assistants, for example as tools via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Such services must enforce the same access rights as other interfaces.
- Documentation: Describe each service's purpose, inputs, outputs, schedule or triggers and failure behavior. A service catalog helps operations teams find which service is responsible for a data flow.
Integration service vs. integration endpoint
An Integration endpoint is an access point. An integration service is a running component that does integration work; it may consume and expose several endpoints.