Introducing Databridge for Zoho Creator
Hello, Enterprise Support Community!
We'd like to highlight a recent utility that was released for Zoho Creator, that will allow you to connect external, private datasources with your Creator apps, Databridge.
Databridge is an application that will need to be installed on your private network machine, that after installation and configuration, establishes an outbound-only connection to Zoho Creator, routing queries from your Creator applications to your private database without ever exposing your internal infrastructure to the internet.
The Challenges We Identified and Why We Made Databridge
Enterprises operating with privately hosted databases often face a common set of obstacles when trying to connect them with cloud applications:
- Inbound exposure risk: Traditional approaches require opening inbound network access to the internet, exposing internal infrastructure to external networks.
- Data residency conflicts: Syncing or replicating privately hosted data to a third-party cloud frequently conflicts with data residency and compliance regulations.
- Data duplication and cost: Migrating data to the cloud to enable access leads to duplication across environments, synchronization overhead, and additional storage costs.
- Integration complexity: Custom middleware or VPN setups are complex to configure, maintain, and scale over time.
- Access control risks: Any lapse in access control can result in unauthorized exposure of sensitive business data.
Databridge is built specifically to solve these challenges, to streamline these common issues for any of our customers that need to be able to access their private data. Records on the private network server can be updated through the integration, but there are no inbound connections established by the Creator app, keeping your network safe and secure.
What is Databridge?
Databridge lets your applications securely access data from services and databases hosted within your private network, through an outbound-only connection model.
At the heart of Databridge is a lightweight application installed on a machine inside your private network. It opens an outbound connection to Zoho Creator and listens for requests, without needing to open any additional connections in your security layer. When a Creator application requests information from an internal system, Databridge securely routes the request through your network and returns the response to Creator.
Why This Matters?
- Extend existing systems without replacing them: Connect your existing ERP or legacy systems to Creator and build on top of them without touching or modifying the core systems.
- Compliance-friendly: It's designed to align with strict data residency, security, and regulatory requirements that enterprises must adhere to.
- Access internal data on demand: Privately hosted enterprise data is available only on an on-demand basis.
- Reduce integration overhead: Avoid managing complex middleware or custom gateway infrastructure for internal system access
How Do You Get Started?
- Navigate to Operations and select Databridge.
- Download and install Databridge on the machine that has access to your internal services or databases.
- Add a connection and enable it to get started. Once configured, your Creator apps can securely access internal systems through Databridge.
For detailed information, refer to our help documentation, found here - Zoho Creator - Understanding Databridge