Introduction to IFX
Create your Ideal Digital Experience Stack with Custom Integrations (IFX)
Secure, scalable and convenient, the Arc XP Integration Framework (IFX) platform as a service (PaaS) extends Arc XP’s platform to seamlessly and swiftly integrate with other tools and applications. IFX offers a fast and secure way to extend and integrate with Arc XP, creating near-endless custom solutions to meet the needs of your market and your business without the hassles of creating and managing a traditional complex infrastructure.
IFX eliminates the repetitive, mundane work (like the need to rebuild existing infrastructure) so, dev teams can instead focus on core business code and integrations that will move the business forward.
Dev teams of all sizes who are looking to build integrations can do so without incurring heavy costs. IFX supports Java and Node.js runtimes, handles security, and makes it easier to share integrations among customers.
Key Benefits of IFX
| PaaS | IFX is hosted and managed by Arc XP so your team doesn’t have to worry about maintaining complex infrastructure. |
| Speed | Creating an integration using a simple API means dev teams can begin writing code in minutes instead of weeks. |
| Extensibility | IFX is a powerful way to insert custom business logic between workflows and extend Arc XP’s platform to augment and enrich your data. Any organization will always have unique business needs and Arc XP’s extensibility points enables our customers to meet those needs with little effort - both today and, in the future, as new tools and technologies develop. |
| Ease of use | IFX is designed to be easy to use for developers at all experience levels. Integrations can be written in either Java or Node.js with supporting documentation and resources, including recipes available. |
| Scalable | IFX can handle a large volume of requests and can be easily scaled up or down as needed. |
| Security | IFX provides built-in security that saves developers the time and effort of managing these features on their own. |
Not to be overlooked is the ease with which IFX enables integrations to be shared across organizations. For example, customer A writes an integration. to an auto-tagging application and they then stand that integration up as a GitHub repo that customer B can then access. Customer B can then fork that repo and use it as is, or make any needed changes, and launch their own integration in a fraction of the time. For the Arc XP Community, IFX increases collaboration and reduces redundant work in a safe environment.
How IFX works
IFX was created to help developers focus on their core business logic and let Arc XP handle infrastructure management.
IFX integrations are triggered by asynchronous or synchronous events from Arc XP applications. Asynchronous events are “fire and forget” types of events that enable the creation of event-driven integrations with external systems. These events, such as story events, enable the application of custom transformations to your data or for delivery to a third party for tasks such as syndication. Using IFX in conjunction with WebSked events delivers even more possibilities including sending newsletters or sending content to a print service.
Synchronous events, on the other hand, allow for the modification and extension of how Arc XP APIs function. For example, Arc XP Subscriptions permits integration with a customer’s preferred payment gateway while still taking advantage of Arc XP’s cart, checkout, and renewal capabilities.
IFX serves as a middle layer between an application (Arc XP Product) and your integration. IFX receives events from other applications and invokes integrations which then apply custom logic to the data.
With IFX, securely hook into key workflows throughout the Arc XP platform to:
- Automatically add tags to stories
- Send automated newsletters through your email service provider
- Translate text content into audio files
- Optimize a story for SEO
- Clear an external system cache whenever an article is updated
- Enrich or modify content with WebSked collections before sending it to an external print system
- Connect your desired payment gateway for use with Arc XP Subscriptions
A more secure way
Securely manage secrets between environments per single integration. Baked-in best practices, and continuous infrastructure analyzation means your team can just focus on writing code – IFX handles the hard part for you.
A platform of possibilities
Arc XP has always been a developer platform with a strong community, and IFX is one of the many ways we are making life easier for developers so they can make a greater impact in less time. Overall, IFX is a great option for businesses of all sizes looking to build integrations quickly, securely, and efficiently.