What are possible Ways to Integrate with Salesforce Force.com?

Hi Piyush

Speaking further on the different layers and integration features available at each level for an enterprise-level application, we have:

• User Interface
• Business Logic
• Data

User Interface Integration is one great way to surface various applications inside Salesforce with little redesign of each individual app. It provides your users a single point of entry into multiple applications. The most relevant example is Facebook Apps, which appears to be in the Facebook instance but in reality, the content is served from different application vendors.

Business Logic Integration uses Apex Web Services for Inbound and Apex Callouts for Outbound. It typically handles a scenario where business logic is spread across several applications to implement the complete end-to-end business process. An example would be building complex logic on the data received before committing it into Salesforce.

Data Integration uses SOAP APIs and REST APIs. It typically handles data synchronization requirements, where one application in an enterprise acts as the primary source for a particular business object, like Account. It requires no coding in Salesforce, which is an advantage, but then it cannot implement any custom logic.