On October 8, 2024, the offline Intecracy Solution Day took place. At the event, Serhii Balashuk presented solutions for integrating the information systems of large enterprises. The Intecracy Group consortium brought together CIOs, system architects and technical specialists from Ukraine’s largest enterprises to discuss reliable data exchange between legacy systems and modern digital platforms. The key speaker was Serhii Balashuk, a leading integration solutions architect.
The event was led by IQusion, a member of Intecracy Group. For the softline.company audience, the topic is directly connected with system integration practice: how to keep critical enterprise systems stable while modernization, custom development and security requirements continue to evolve.
Why Direct Integrations Become a Risk
In large companies, the IT landscape usually combines several generations of technology. Monolithic systems support critical transactions, while the business expects mobile services, real-time analytics and cloud flexibility. Balashuk explained that the point-to-point model quickly creates a tangled network of dependencies that is difficult to scale, test and update securely.
The alternative discussed at the meeting was a unified integration layer. It should separate data consumers from internal complexity, define access rules and help the enterprise change its architecture gradually without interrupting critical operations.
API Gateway, Kafka and MDM as One Integration Circuit
The presentation covered tools that address different integration scenarios. API Gateway provides a standardized interface, authentication, authorization, request routing and protection of internal services from excessive load. Kafka is important for event streams and asynchronous interaction, especially when systems cannot depend on each other’s immediate response.
The role of MDM, or Master Data Management, was also emphasized. If customer, product or contractor reference data has no single source of truth, integration only accelerates the spread of duplicates and errors. That is why the technology stack was presented not as a set of isolated components, but as a coordinated data exchange circuit.
“When designing an integration architecture for large-scale systems, we always face a trade-off between data transmission speed and guaranteed consistency. ... This is where Kafka comes to the rescue, acting as a powerful load buffer,” noted Serhii Balashuk during his presentation.
Practical Patterns for Legacy Environments
During the discussion part of the offline meeting, participants reviewed Change Data Capture (CDC). This approach makes it possible to track changes in legacy databases through transaction logs and send them to Kafka without adding pressure to core business processes. For enterprises with a long IT history, it is a way to provide current data to new services without immediately rewriting the core.
The need for API versioning and the use of Schema Registry in Kafka was also raised. These practices reduce the risk of failures when individual components are updated independently and data format compatibility must remain controlled.
Modernization Without Breaking Business Processes
Balashuk presented integration as an architectural foundation for gradual enterprise evolution. Modularity and clearly defined integration layers allow organizations to apply the Strangler Fig approach: legacy functions are replaced step by step with microservices while the business continues to operate. In the context of enterprise systems, custom development, system integration and cybersecurity, this approach helps align the speed of change with infrastructure governance.
This report was prepared with reference to the Intecracy Group publication on enterprise integration architecture.
