Integration Discovery Questions
When working with customers on integration requirements, ask these questions to understand their environment and needs.
Authentication Integration
General Authentication
What authentication system do you currently use?
- OAuth2/OIDC
- SAML
- LDAP/Active Directory
- Custom authentication
- None (need to implement)
Who is your identity provider?
- Google Workspace
- Microsoft Azure AD
- Okta
- OneLogin
- Ping Identity
- On-premises AD
- Other
Do you require Single Sign-On (SSO)?
- Yes, required
- Yes, preferred
- No
What user attributes do you need?
- Email address
- Username
- Groups/roles
- Department
- Custom attributes
OAuth/OIDC Specific
What OAuth provider do you use?
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Azure AD (OAuth)
- Custom provider
Do you have OAuth client credentials?
- Client ID
- Client Secret
- Redirect URI configured
What OAuth scopes do you need?
- User profile
- Groups
- Custom scopes
SAML Specific
What is your IdP SSO URL?
- Where users are redirected for authentication
What is your IdP Entity ID?
- Unique identifier for the identity provider
Do you have the IdP certificate?
- Public certificate for signature verification
What is your SP Entity ID?
- Unique identifier for your application
What is your ACS (Assertion Consumer Service) URL?
- Where SAML responses are sent
What attributes are provided in SAML assertions?
- Email, username, groups, etc.
Do you require signed requests?
- Some IdPs require SP to sign requests
LDAP/AD Specific
What is your LDAP/AD server?
- Hostname or IP address
- Port (389 for LDAP, 636 for LDAPS)
What is the base DN?
- Root of the directory tree
- Example:
dc=company,dc=com
What is the bind DN?
- Service account for LDAP queries
- Example:
cn=service,ou=users,dc=company,dc=com
What is the user search base?
- Where to search for users
- Example:
ou=users,dc=company,dc=com
What is the user search filter?
- How to find users
- Example:
(uid={0})or(sAMAccountName={0})
Do you use LDAPS (TLS)?
- Secure LDAP connection
- Requires certificate validation
What attributes map to username?
uid,sAMAccountName,mail, etc.
Do you need group membership?
- Check user groups for authorization
Database Integration
General Database
Where is your database located?
- GCP Cloud SQL
- AWS RDS
- Azure Database
- On-premises data center
- Other cloud provider
- Customer-managed
What database type?
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL/MariaDB
- SQL Server
- Oracle
- MongoDB
- Other
What database version?
- Specific version number
- Any compatibility requirements
Connectivity
How is the database accessed?
- Public IP
- Private IP (VPN)
- Private IP (VPC peering)
- Direct connect
- Not yet determined
What network connectivity exists?
- VPN tunnel
- Cloud Interconnect
- Direct connect
- Internet only
- Private network
What are the connection requirements?
- IP whitelist
- VPN required
- Certificate-based authentication
- Username/password
- IAM authentication
Configuration
What is the connection string format?
- Host
- Port
- Database name
- SSL requirements
What authentication method?
- Username/password
- Certificate
- IAM (Cloud SQL)
- Kerberos
- Other
Are there connection limits?
- Max connections
- Connection timeout
- Idle timeout
What SSL/TLS requirements?
- SSL required
- SSL mode (require, verify-full, etc.)
- Certificate validation
Performance
What is the expected workload?
- Read-heavy
- Write-heavy
- Balanced
- High transaction volume
Do you need connection pooling?
- Yes, required
- Yes, preferred
- No
What are performance requirements?
- Query latency targets
- Throughput requirements
- Concurrent connection needs
API Gateway
Requirements
Do you need API gateway functionality?
- Routing
- Rate limiting
- Authentication
- Request transformation
- Monitoring
What are your requirements?
- Managed service preferred
- Self-hosted acceptable
- Specific features needed
What is your traffic volume?
- Requests per second
- Requests per day
- Peak traffic patterns
Features
What authentication do you need?
- API keys
- OAuth tokens
- JWT validation
- Custom authentication
Do you need rate limiting?
- Per API key
- Per IP
- Per user
- Global limits
Do you need request/response transformation?
- Header modification
- Body transformation
- URL rewriting
What monitoring do you need?
- Request logs
- Metrics
- Tracing
- Alerting
Service Mesh
Requirements
Do you need service mesh functionality?
- Advanced traffic routing
- mTLS between services
- Observability
- Policy enforcement
What is your service architecture?
- Microservices
- Monolithic
- Hybrid
What are your traffic management needs?
- Canary deployments
- A/B testing
- Traffic splitting
- Circuit breaking
What security requirements?
- mTLS required
- Network policies
- Authentication policies
What observability needs?
- Distributed tracing
- Service metrics
- Request logging
General Integration Questions
What is your timeline?
- Urgent (days)
- Standard (weeks)
- Flexible (months)
What is your budget?
- Managed services acceptable
- Cost-sensitive
- Open source preferred
What is your operational capability?
- Can manage complex systems
- Prefer managed services
- Limited operations team
What are your compliance requirements?
- HIPAA
- SOC 2
- FedRAMP
- Industry-specific
What is your disaster recovery plan?
- Backup requirements
- RTO/RPO targets
- Failover procedures
Documentation Requirements
What documentation do you need?
- Architecture diagrams
- Configuration guides
- Troubleshooting runbooks
- Training materials
Who will maintain this?
- Your team
- Customer team
- Shared responsibility
What handoff is required?
- Full documentation
- Training sessions
- Support period
Next Steps
After gathering answers:
- Document Requirements: Create integration requirements document
- Design Architecture: Design integration architecture
- Plan Implementation: Create implementation plan
- Validate Assumptions: Confirm understanding with customer
- Implement: Build and test integration
- Document: Create operational documentation