The era of ‘integrated’ business has arrived, and it’s driving an unprecedented rush by IT organizations to enable a digital business transformation.

That’s the findings from Gartner, which reports that the worldwide Application Infrastructure and Middleware (AIM) software grew $21.5 billion in 2013 – up almost 6 percent from 2012. This investment growth, Gartner says, is fuelled by the use of multiple delivery models, complex event processing, and the convergence of application and data integration requirements as enterprises forge ahead with their digital business strategy.

According to Gartner, emerging opportunities such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things, mobile enablement and intelligent business operations – areas in which AIM providers are actively innovating – are driving organizations to realize their ‘integrated business’ vision. A vision in which applications, processes, sensors and ‘things’ are all interconnected.

But enabling this business transformation means IT organizations need to operate with much greater agility and ‘on demand’, injecting real-time intelligence into their business processes.

And that’s where the problems arise. Because, as Gartner points out, enabling digital business transformation involves being able to integrate numerous endpoints – like mobile apps, cloud-based applications, social networks, heterogeneous data sources and a growing number of ‘things’. All of which requires data intelligence at the application level – understanding what data needs to be transmitted, when, and to which device at the right time. This will ensure  you can serve more users, faster, with the most relevant and up-to-date data.

As a result, Gartner says, many organizations are coming to realize their established application infrastructure strategies are no longer adequate. Because, when it comes to achieving rapid web scaling and operational intelligence, organizations will need lightweight, low-cost technologies that can cope with the explosion of data across networks to deliver a rich application experience and real-time interactions.