Selecting a low-code product requires a clear understanding of your most common requirements. Are you dealing with a variety of data and workflows? Do your apps need to integrate with partner APIs? Are your business requirements changing often? Are your users finicky about the experience? Do you have both citizen and professional app development teams? Are you finding it difficult to hire skills?

All low-code platforms give you a promising start. You get off the block at speed, simple apps are easy, and tough ones seem possible. But missing key requirements in your platform means you will soon find yourself skipping deadlines or you need to hire developers to finish the job - defeating the purpose of buying a low-code product. That's why setting some criteria for choosing a low-code application platform is important. Here is our list.

What are your goals for using the low-code platform?

Using a low-code platform offers several benefits.
Here are some common goals of using a low-code platform:

Accelerated Development, Increased productivity, Faster time to market

Low-code platforms enable faster application development by providing pre-built widgets, custom reusable components and visual development interfaces like out-of-the-box themes, templates and layouts. Developers can rely on drag-and-drop methodology, automatic code generation that provides open-standards-based code that is human readable, and auto-API documentation which is all handled by the low code platform. This allows developers to focus on the core functionality of the application without spending excessive time on repetitive coding tasks and reducing the manual coding effort drastically. Consequently, development cycles are shortened, and applications can be delivered to the market quickly.

Cost Savings, Reduced TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of Applications

Low-code platforms can reduce development costs by minimizing the need for seeking/hiring proprietary developer skill sets, extensive coding, reducing the development cycle, and streamlining maintenance and updates. With faster development times and increased productivity, organizations can achieve cost savings in terms of development resources, resource allocation and time to market. Low-code platforms priced based on developer seats are hassle-free when it comes to developing applications, as there is no limit to the number of applications or end users. In addition, it is vital that these platforms do not have any runtime dependency or hidden costs that can later impact the TCO of applications.

Simplified Integration & Deployments

Low-code platforms offer seamless integration capabilities with third-party systems, databases, and APIs. This simplifies the process of connecting and interacting with external services, eliminating the need for extensive custom coding. As a result, integrating disparate systems becomes straightforward, enabling enterprises to leverage existing enterprise assets and data sources effectively with minimal to no disruption in existing practices. The LCDP should also provide the ability to deploy anywhere without any runtime implications. This will enable enterprises the freedom of deploying their apps built using LCDP to either merge with their existing CI/CD process or deploy to an orchestration layer like K8s or Redhat OpenShift or a cloud of their choice or an on-premise setup.

Agility and Flexibility

Low-code platforms provide the ability to make rapid changes, prototyping and updates to applications. With visual development interfaces that include the WYSIWYG approach, developers can easily modify and adapt applications in response to changing business requirements or user feedback. This agility allows organizations to iterate quickly, experiment with new ideas, and respond accurately to market demands.

Collaboration and Transparency

Low-code platforms come with built-in collaboration features, allowing multiple developers to work together on a project. By providing centralized governance and enterprise-grade features like role-based access control at a development level which enhances project management for a development team. These platforms facilitate communication, version control, knowledge and application asset sharing among team members by providing an internal artifact repository that resembles an internal developer marketplace. This promotes transparency, enhances teamwork, and improves the overall developer community.

Who are the users? What’s their coding expertise?

There are primarily two user personas when it comes to low-code platforms - developers and business users. There are low code development tools that are developer-focused and built using standards frameworks like Java, Angular, HTML, CSS, and Javascript that are tailored to developers to boost their productivity and make them efficient while minimizing the learning curve.

• The developer-centric LCDPs are designed to deliver enterprise-grade applications and are used to solve real-world enterprise product gaps and deliver customized user journeys that provide heavy customizations creating value for enterprises and their end users.
• The developer-centric LCDP acts like a force multiplier over existing skill sets of development professionals, transforming them into full-stack developers, so teams can manage the entire application life cycle end-end.
• It is hard to find an LCDP that is completely tech stack agnostic to the type of preferred developer. That being said, for a developer-centric LCDP which is either Java-based/.Net based, it would be easy to find the relevant talent pool in the market and relatively easy to adopt and adapt to.

On the other hand, there are LCDPs that are business user-oriented, which deliver a workflow-based approach to application development that may or may not fall under the category of solving serious enterprise-grade applications, like basic approval flows, data collection, etc., they do provide value in creating simple user journeys and flow-based applications. But here, the application delivery cycle times can be delayed due to a handoff between the business user and the development/delivery teams.

What is the scope and scale of the problem to be solved?

There are multiple use cases that can be an ideal fit for low-code platforms:

• Creating new user experiences: LCDP can provide pixel-perfect UI and screens that enable enterprises to develop end user-facing web responsive & mobile applications as per their customer convenience. Enterprises also need to keep in mind that to maintain customer satisfaction, their offerings need to change as per market demands and conditions to provide the best value to their customers. Having the ability, agility, and flexibility to match or exceed these expectations with minimal effort and maximum productivity is something to look out for in an LCDP.
• Legacy System Modernization: Enterprises still rely on legacy systems that are outdated or difficult to maintain which leads to increased TCO. Low code platforms can help modernize these systems by allowing developers to build new interfaces, integrate with modern technologies, or even replace specific functionalities with modern application artifacts. It is essential to choose a LCDP that provides a tech stack and a scalable tech stack upgrade plan to maintain and keep your applications relevant and futureproof.
• Self-Service Portals: Low code platforms can be utilized to create self-service portals, empowering end-users to access and manage their own data, request services, and perform tasks independently. These portals can enhance customer stickiness, reduce support overhead, and improve overall user experience. The LCDP should have an underlying framework that is open and flexible to easily integrate into the existing enterprise assets/core systems with minimal disruption and can provide a modern interface necessary to absorb new requirements faster.

Are there custom integrations with external and internal applications?

The LCDP of choice should have the necessary open framework to support integration for systems already in use within your enterprise to meet your application requirements. Integrations to Swagger API open spec or standards provide LCDPs with a higher acceptance of universally used APIs facilitating integrations with any third-party systems - external or internal.

It is an added benefit when the LCDP is advanced enough to understand the API input and provide the necessary CRUD endpoints automatically based on the API definitions. This heavy lifting of the LCDP will improve developer productivity and reduce the coding effort. In some cases where the already in-use APIs do not meet the universal Swagger spec standards, there would be a need to create custom integrations and custom code configurations to enable the LCDP to accept these APIs. A pitfall to look out for would be that LCDP in consideration could be tied to a particular technology and only supports integrations within the said locked technology landscape (for example - Microsoft™ / Salesforce® / ServiceNow™). This can limit or eliminate the scope of integrating with other third-party systems that use other technologies.

What is the turnaround time needed?

With the LCDP being developer-centric and open standards-based, it is easily adoptable by developers. The ability of the platform to generate standards-based code that is human-readable, editable, and extensible gives developers a sense of security and ownership. This puts the developers in their comfort zone to be able to adopt a new development tool or a platform, and the learning curve is neither steep nor long. With the help of the support channels, documentation, and training, the adoption time coupled with the understanding of best practices creates a seamless transition for developers to feel confident with the platform of choice. A realistic time estimate for a developer to attain low-medium proficiency with an LCDP can be 1-2 months and high-expert proficiency may span 3-4 months.

How much control do users want to retain over code?

An LCDP providing code-level controls is definitely a good-to-have feature when choosing an LCDP. An LCDP that provides access and control to the generated code provides development teams with transparency and ownership which may be in general; lacking in LCDPs that do not provide code control or access. Development teams can now understand and read the generated code allowing the possibility to bring in more complex customisations and integrations to meet the high standards of enterprise-grade use case requirements.

The advantage of an LCDP that generates code and provides code-level controls can be seen in the versatile use cases of the platform. There can also be scenarios where development teams need not want access to the generated code/perform code-level changes, which is befitting for such requirements. A good LCDP platform caters to this segment of developers as well.

Does the application need to factor in security considerations?

All enterprise applications need to come with enterprise-grade security measures to safeguard the applications from external threats making them robust and secure. It is a good practice to look out for LCDP platforms that have certain out-of-the-box security certifications in place like OWASP Top 10 vulnerability attacks. This saves time and effort to perform individual tests as the platform already possesses these safeguards.

LCDPs that generate code need to take care of the code quality and standards to minimize flaws in their first-party code. Having a certified status by companies like Veracode, Checkmarx or Acunetix etc. represents a high standard of security practices in the generated code. In addition to this, LCDP platforms should have the provision to connect with existing enterprise authentication and authorization mechanisms to blend in. Out-of-the-box integrations with LDAP, Active Directory, OpenID, CAS, SAML etc. with the support for SSO help developers configure security tasks and authentication with ease, for respective application use cases.

Low-code fosters continuous innovation and allows you to create at the speed of change. There is a wide range of low-code tech out there, be wise to evaluate how these platforms perform in context to your enterprise and development needs, the right platform can accelerate productivity, and produce secure and scalable apps, with great user experiences, enabling your teams to go to market faster.

Authored by Shobhit Mathur, Sr. Director and Category Head BFS, WaveMaker, Inc

It is said that 5G is 100 times faster than 4G. An astronomical increase, indeed. Yet, for enterprises, ‘speed’ is not the most significant paradigm shift that accompanies 5G.

The most significant shifts are the ancillary capabilities enabled by the high speed that 5G provides—edge computing, ultra-low latency, massive network capacity, reduced power consumption for devices, stronger security, private networks, and more.

The advent of 5G is a massive opportunity for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to move up the value chain, from being providers of undifferentiated connectivity to providing platforms and domain-specific solutions for SMBs and enterprises.

Armed with know-how, CSPs are best suited to cater to the demands of network services that enterprises would require. However, to see profitability, CSPs need customers to buy solutions that are built on top of these capabilities. They need to offer a broad spectrum of functional solutions for use cases that go beyond connectivity and communications.

The way forward for CSPs

Enterprises are keen to provide superior customer experiences over the speed that 5G provides while CSPs have the imperative to cater to these very demands and stay in the competition. Instead of being dependent on external vendors, CSPs, understandably, are looking to take control of the customer experience systems.

To bring this to fruition, they would want to build a layer of services over the existing systems like Business Support Systems (BSS) and Operation Support Systems (OSS). In the future, CSPs might select API providers for implementing backend functionalities, but would most likely be self-reliant when it comes to building apps over them.

Yet, as proven across industries, paradigm shifts and opportunities of such magnitude, always need a holistic and fresh approach.

Three things CSPs need to meet customer expectations

CSPs, thus, can take a holistic approach to application development by adopting a multi-layered platform approach, rather than a short-sighted rapid launch of use case-specific apps.

Three strategic layers that CSPs can leverage over their existing infrastructure are

#1 A Functional API Plane: Typical application stacks at CSPs include both BSS and OSS. The BSS provides the bare-bones customer experience layer to attract, convert, service, and bill a customer. To elevate the customer experience CSPs could take the following steps:

• CSPs could make a conscious decision not to add more functionality to the existing BSS. They would be better served by deploying new API-based solutions for the new use cases.
• They can decouple the UX from the BSS by adopting a micro-services-based approach by modernizing and cloud-enabling the existing BSS or implementing a new BSS altogether.

#2 A Digital Experience Hub: A Digital Experience Hub (DEH) built over the API layer can decouple the UX from the functional systems. The DEH can act as a unified API layer over core systems (BSS & OSS) as well as the new use case-centric functional systems.

#3 A Digital Experience Layer: Incumbent CSPs can adopt a next-gen, digital-first approach for delivering a customized and personalized omnichannel experience to customers with the help of a layered platform-based approach. This Digital Experience Layer built on top of the DEH will have componentized telecom-based experiences. This is where low-code can act as the crucial last layer of experience development.

A multi-layered platform for app development is a strategic choice for telcos and enterprises. Yet, a big-bang approach to modernization is not advisable. The stakes are too high when there is an imminent risk of disruption. Instead, CSPs are well advised to adopt an iterative and phased approach to modernization.

In this context, the potent combination of composability, co-existence, and a low-code platform may be the perfect antidote to the modernization conundrum.

 

Composability + co-existence + low-code: a potent combination

Incumbent CSPs need to reinvent the wheel with modern, cloud-native, omnichannel applications to gain traction and prepare themselves for the 5G era. But, the use case by use case approach, or traditional development methodologies will make it difficult to provide the acceleration that they need.

What CSPs need is a foundational platform for the UX layer that can:

• Accelerate the rollout of cutting-edge modern UX faster, without changing the existing engineering practices, toolsets, and teams.
• Leverage existing as well as new infrastructure - (apps as well as APIs). CSPs do not have the liberty to wait for backend modernization for new systems to be launched. Nor do they have visibility on all the new use cases that they want to address. Hence the co-existence of old and new in this transformation journey is critical.
• Help in building an open and extensible platform rather than just customer apps. The composability approach is critical to the platformification of the UX layer. Furthermore, it optimizes the development effort by enabling reuse across use cases and apps.

 

From apps to Experience-as-a-Service platforms with low-code

An Experience-as-a-Service paradigm can be built by layering purpose-built stacks on one another.

Creating an integration layer enables enterprises to orchestrate experiences from different vendors and internal APIs. These APIs are combined cohesively to create experience APIs that bring the best-of-breed services together and give the customer a unified experience.

Componentized and configurable low-code platforms can then be leveraged to create an Experience-as-a-Service layer on top of these assets.

Components (bundled with logic, data, and UI) that represent entire user journeys can be built into a configurable platform to provide better control to business users and allow them to innovate better. These components in turn can be reused and rehashed for any use case, app, or channel across the enterprise landscape.

 

 

On another note, CSPs are well aware that the skill shortage crisis is real. Either they do not have enough hands or do not possess the bandwidth to acquire the talent they need. Low-code platforms are great enablers in this context. Developers with diverse or even legacy skill sets can onboard and adopt low-code platforms and take advantage of full-stack technologies in minimum time.

With features like pre-built components, faster onboarding, a lower learning curve, flexible customization, and easy configuration, composable low-code are slated to become an enterprise-wide app development strategy.

With low-code, enterprises and telcos will go to market faster, be it through ideation, testing the market with PoCs or MVPs, or performing quick customizations to meet large customer-specific needs.

 

Summary

CSPs have the knowledge and know-how in the telecom industry. This gives them a unique perspective and a special seat at the table when discussing the impact of 5G. It also provides them the opportunity to pivot from being network providers to transforming into facilitators of 5G ecosystems.

To compete well with software providers, CSPs need to provide differentiated experiences at speed, which requires a paradigm shift in software development. Traditional approaches to development take time and the opportunity cost of losing out to nimbler competition is really high.

On the other hand, low code is an ideal tool to tackle the skill shortage and acceleration problem. It would be prudent to adopt a composable low-code platform that can allow them to leverage their expertise and develop experiences fast. Doing so will enable them to monetize their investment in 5G with speed and scale.

Originally published in The Fast Mode

Authored by Deepak Anupalli, Co-Founder and CTO, WaveMaker, Inc

The Global Digital Transformation Market is expected to grow from USD $469.8 Billion in 2020 to USD $1,009.8 Billion by 2025 while enterprises are responding to market demands by transitioning toward a new digital era – with haste.

There is much to be said about the velocity at which this transition is being made. This is particularly the case for organizations that have relied on traditional software platforms and methodologies for decades.

Take, for instance, large Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and solution providers. They typically create custom software solutions for their clients at scale, but delivering complete customized software using a traditional development team is simply not a scalable business model in these times.

In terms of cost, traditional development platforms and processes are burning a huge hole in the enterprise pocket. Typically, enterprise software costs are factored in on a short-term basis, but the bigger picture leaves much to be desired. The overall cost to maintain, update, re-platform, or rebuild software with traditional development teams on a long-term basis is astronomically higher. Add the cost of lingering technical debt, and enterprises that rely on traditional methods might have a problem that won’t be going away anytime soon.

It’s no wonder that enterprises are switching to Rapid Application Development platforms like low-code that can offer not only speed, but also customization, composability, and the ability to build customer experiences that differentiate them from competitors.

Low-Code for Mainstream Accelerated Development

Low-code is a modern approach to agile software development. A low-code platform enables professional developers to build products in a visually declarative manner, by abstracting commonly used functionalities as components. These components can be dragged and dropped onto an application canvas and then configured and customized per application. Such a methodology allows developers to tackle complexity with ease and build products, almost 3X times faster than traditional approaches. Components that represent an entire functionality bundled with UI, logic, and data can be stored in internal repositories that can be customized for any use case across the enterprise application landscape. This allows SMEs and business users to provide their expertise while building applications, and in turn, democratizes software development leading to better ideation and innovation.

Etching a Sustainable Development Path with Low-Code

While low-code platforms give an initial boost to rapidly build and deliver software to the market, can they also help enterprises build software with the right architecture, provide iron-clad security, and the best software to scale? Most importantly, can low-code approaches help businesses build software that is sustainable in the longer term?

The answers to these questions depend on the choice of platform and the enterprise’s long-term strategy around the platform. Low-code adopted as a quick fix for an immediate problem cannot scale up as a long-term strategy.

On the other hand, the adoption of a low-code platform as the basis for an enterprise-wide, long-term strategy – with the right methodologies and best practices set around it – will enable growth, ensure sustainability, and allow businesses and their apps to scale.

The Low-Code Maturity Path

 

 

1. Faster Go-To-Market: The low-code advantage with composable components and integrations

The first advantage of adopting a low-code platform is, of course, speed and agility. Using a composable experience platform, existing development teams can pool their resources, integrate with best-of-breed APIs, and rapidly componentize them as LEGO-like blocks. These components can then be assembled together to quickly compose custom software that is highly integrable and customizable. Faster go-to-market is just the first milestone.

However, there is an initial ramp-up time for the learning curve, albeit a smaller one than with other approaches, and the gains are usually best observed when building multiple apps or when there is wider adoption of the platform across the organization.

Once existing development teams build familiarity with the low-code platforms and align with the technology stack offered, a core competency for the platform is created internally within the organization. This is a determinant for the success of the low-code strategy within the ecosystem.

2. Respond at the Speed of Need: Allow developers to customize and extend functionality quickly

After the go-live, it is important to look at the turnaround time at which changes can be rolled out using the same low-code platform. Business and development teams should be able to collaborate, review changes, and align on business objectives for successful change rollouts.

In a traditional development setup, software updates typically must go through the entire build, review, and QA process. Some of the changes could lead to regressions, which necessitates the need to have expert software development teams to govern them.

With low-code, changes can be confined to specific layers of an application, ( such as user interface, data model, and business logic), and only the functional aspects of the app are impacted, leaving the underlying software components, integrations, and their integrity intact.

3. React to Disruptive Market Forces: Compose and create new experiences

Changing market needs usually demand that software development teams be very agile to remain in sync with business changes. It is here where the true differentiator of low-code lies.

Only a few low-code platforms enable a composable way of defining and creating new experiences from existing components, cutting down the time it takes to make drastic changes or even a complete overhaul of the app experience. A composable low-code platform offers a powerful way to create components that can be reused by development teams to compose new applications and user journeys, allowing businesses to experiment with new product ideas and innovate.

4. Evolve with The Industry Trends: Adapt to industry trends with continuous product evolution

Every software product goes through its own evolutionary process and has to scale as the number of users grows and adoption kicks in for wider markets. It becomes very critical for the product to support a wide array of capabilities such as internationalization (e.g. i18n), support for accessibility, multi-cloud deployment, versioning for components, penetration testing, industry-specific compliance, and so on.

Mature low-code platforms have out-of-the-box support for these capabilities making the development process easier for development teams as the software evolves.

5. Scale and Sustain: Respond to technology disruptions quickly, upgrade, and sustain

It is estimated that engineers spend a whopping 30% of their time resolving issues arising due to technical debt when modernizing software. A changing technology landscape renders it very difficult for software to withstand the test of time. Technical debt will show its damaging effects unless the platform was built with resilience in mind and there is a process in place to handle the debt.

With new technology innovations, software should adapt and change course to thrive and sustain itself. Low-code platforms enable a layer of abstraction for development teams, allowing them to stay closer to their business solutions and do the heavy lifting of technology advancements underneath the platform strategy.

Migration of underlying JavaScript frameworks such as Angular JS to Angular, stack upgrades for the backend such as Java 9 to Java 11, and so on are only possible if the right architecture is in place. Upgrades happen under the hood, and since low-code does all the laborious work behind the scenes, the transitions happen seamlessly.

Summary

Organizations that are contemplating adopting a low-code platform are making a wise choice. However, due diligence is required to zero in on the right platform. If the motive is to enable business users to develop simple apps for their internal use, any no-code platform can do the job.

However, if the low-code platform is for serious app development, then all stakeholders including IT teams, business users, CTOs, and CIOs need to create a strategic plan for its adoption in a collaborative manner. Organizational best practices of change management, upgrades, and rollouts need to be consolidated and built around low-code. Processes for each stage of app creation need to be set in place. The low-code platform of choice must offer flexibility and scalability unconditionally. It should ideally be able to ride the maturity curve as the use cases expand and as adoption spreads throughout the organization, allowing organizations to deliver, customize, compose, and upgrade at the speed of their need.

Originally published in DEVPRO JOURNAL

Authored by Vikram Srivats, Chief Commercial Officer, WaveMaker, Inc

After the grueling stress test of a global pandemic, corporations must now contend with the stresses of war and a weakening macroeconomic environment and yet transform to become modern, composable, and competitive enterprises. Technology executives at the center of this transformation are pursuing bold yet pragmatic strategies, including building and scaling new software-driven business capabilities quickly. For them, the holy grail seems to be democratizing software application development itself – with low-code/no-code (LCNC) approaches – to deliver at speed and at scale to the business.

Professional developers and enterprise architects get involved in governing LCNC development as enterprises become deliberate about policies, processes, and people to scale this movement responsibly. But pro-coders themselves are not yet active adopters of LCNC platforms – they range from interested observers (at best) to those that detest LCNC platforms (for valid reasons).

Based on industry estimates, around 35-40% of a pro coder’s time is spent in setting up, creating guardrails, importing, and integrating with data sources, writing code from scratch, making code secure, testing and retesting applications, managing source control, and versioning, adding internationalization, making them accessible, optimizing for performance, and maintaining or upgrading applications. Another 30% of the time is spent on non-technical or operational activities. That leaves less than half of their productive time for thinking, innovating, and crafting complex and compelling apps and experiences.

Clearly, pro-coders experience pain. So, what should low-code platforms offer to entice pro-coders to adopt and, better yet, embrace them? Let’s dig in.

Rule 1: Be Open. Provide Familiarity and Visibility

What if a low-code platform used an open standards-based, popular tech stack (React, Angular, and Bootstrap for UI; Spring for backend; Docker containers)? What if developers could actually see and read real (not model-generated or metadata-driven) code being generated? What if this code was written the way they code?

Pro coders are accustomed to seeing, reading, and understanding real code in a language or framework that is open and widely accepted. So, just give it to them.

Rule 2: Custom Everything

Developers need the ability to add fine-grained logic to their applications; that is, writing custom services or creating custom APIs in a code editor alongside the drag-and-drop canvas.

Low-code platforms should offer developers the ability to configure each out-of-the-box widget to a high degree to allow for creating visually captivating experiences.

Imagine if developers could go beyond a standard UI widget library and create their own custom components – building blocks of API-infused UI – and add them to their private library. Sometimes, developers may also need to import pre-built components (React or Angular or GraphQL components exported as standard Web Components) into their low-code development platform and reuse them.

Finally, developers may want to create their own application theme – a combination of fonts, layouts, colors, and styles – to create a differentiated yet consistent branded user experience across one or more applications or products.

Rule 3: Integrate Easily with Data Sources. Set Up Quickly.

Integration and extraction from data sources such as APIs (REST, SOAP, or WebSocket), databases (such as MySQL, Maria DB, PostgreSQL, Oracle DB, SQL Server, IBM DB2, Amazon Redshift, SAP Hana, HSQL, and Mongo DB) or streaming data sources (like Kafka embedded in the app) – must be supported and be effortless.

CRUD operations are usually hardcoded by the developer and take up a lot of time. If a low-code platform could automatically generate all the CRUD APIs once the data source is imported, it cuts down the development time immensely. Similarly, an editable abstraction of the database that replicates the schema of the DB can help developers manipulate the data from within the platform itself.

Once imported, developers should be able to bind their UI easily and quickly to the backend via passing variables. Data from a REST call should then be easily displayed as entities on a page without any workarounds or wordy importing and model definition. Likewise, with a Swagger import, descriptions should be able to handle reusing the same model in multiple endpoints or recursive models.

Rule 4: Apps Must Be Secure, Scalable, and Performant

For user authentication, developers may need to integrate with database, LDAP, Active Directory, SAML, and other authentication providers. SSO should be easily enabled with support for SAML federation and Central Authentication Server (CAS). For authorization, low-code platforms need to support coarse as well as fine-grained permissions that extend across pages, individual widgets on a page, and even individual APIs exposed by the application.

Developers look for protection against OWASP vulnerabilities (XSS, CSRF, brute force attacks, SQL injection) and support of encryption standards such as TLS 1.2+ during app hosting. Ideally, low-code platforms need to be certified by security leaders like Veracode who perform rigorous static and dynamic tests (iAST, SAST, DAST, and SCA).

Through session-less architecture, distributed caching, horizontal scaling through containers, and UI framework-specific performance features (for example, Angular 13 has lazy loading, Brotli compression, tree shaking, Ivy), developers using low-code platforms can build highly performant apps, minimizing chattiness and UI-to-backend roundtrips. As an example, instead of storing the state in a session, it can be backed by a distributed cache (such as Redis) to allow apps to scale horizontally.

Rule 5: Deploy Anywhere, Anyhow

Developers cannot be constrained to a vendor-specific app deployment infrastructure. They need the freedom and flexibility to host their apps anywhere – on any public, private, or hybrid Cloud, on K8s clusters, or on bare metal/on-premise infrastructure. Low-code platforms that offer a development model where the UI is decoupled from the backend, can allow UI and backend artifacts to be separately packaged and deployed (UI to CDN; as an example, backend to a standard Java server like Tomcat) using a standard archive or a Docker image.

Rule 6: Complex and Long-Lived Apps & Large-Scale Platforms

Developers hand-code some of the most complex apps and systems in use today. They need low-code platforms to step up to the plate and deliver equally complex apps that can be sustainable over the long term in terms of maintenance and enhancements.

For example, low-code platforms need to integrate with 3rd party BPM tools (Camunda, jBPM, Flowable, Activity) that help developers orchestrate detailed workflows/tasks and need to support a full 2-way data exchange with the BPM tool’s runtime engine. Within low-code platforms, developers will expect to easily manipulate complex data (pick a certain number of arrays and use logic to combine them into a new set of arrays) and easily represent complex graphs without custom styling/CSS or tangling with data formats.

Developers may need to conditionally retrieve data using a parent-child relationship, be able to localize and internationalize applications, handle complex core code merges and upgrades with customized apps in deployment, deal with Swagger changes pushed to already imported Swagger files without rewiring all the variables, write and support complex business logic interleaved with visual development, support multiple app themes at runtime, support apps as deep links, set click targets to measure/launch intents or URLs, and so on.

Rule 7: No Vendor Lock-In, Restrictions, or Fine Print

Lock-in is a strict no for developers who value independence and freedom. That starts with access to the generated code. Low-code platforms that do well in this space readily offer developers the ability to not only see and read generated code but also to export source code outside of the platform to an IDE of their choice.

Developers also don’t like low-code platforms that force them to use their runtime environment to deploy their apps, effectively locking developers and their employers into the platform through the app’s lifecycle. Lastly, from a licensing perspective, low-code platforms that restrict developers to a limited number of apps, app objects, or end users effectively throttle developers to a commercial model that becomes quickly expensive with usage and more apps.

Rule 8: Modern (Cloud-Native) Environments, Practices, and Standards

Developers using cloud-native low-code platforms benefit in terms of collaboration, ease of access, availability, flexibility, security, frequent and easy upgrades, horizontal scaling, and the overall unit economics of the model for their app development and deployment.

Developer-friendly low-code platforms generate code using modern design patterns (for example, a Java maven project) enabling developers to see, extend, and customize code across all layers of the application stack. They enable every user to have a workspace running as a container instance. When an app is built, a repo is automatically created for it in the low-code platform’s source control/Git (and integrated with Prometheus/EFK for logs and metrics).

Finally, developers appreciate low-code platforms that embrace modern standards, say Android Material Design specification for visual design and building interaction across multiple devices using out-of-the-box widgets and themes. They value the ability to create functional, distributable, reusable, API-integrated, and independently testable experience components. Low-code platforms that offer twelve-factor standards assure developers that their apps are trustworthy.

Rule 9: Play Well with Design, Build, Test, and Release Processes and Toolsets

Developers using low-code platforms will want their apps to connect to, integrate with, or be embedded in other hand-coded apps. Beyond iFrame support, low-code platforms that support embedding via a micro frontend approach (such as Single SPA) offer sophisticated functionality for developers to create seamless end-to-end experiences that cover high-code and low-code developed apps.

Professional application development teams tend to use design tools like Figma, Sketch, or UXPin; QA tools like Selenium, Protractor, or Karma for testing web apps; Appium for testing mobile apps; and performance testing tools and app profilers like AppDynamics or New Relic. DevOps teams have a plethora of tools for the build, test, integration, and deployment processes. Post-deployment, developers would like to monitor app performance events, and page tracking via Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics. Low-code platforms that endear themselves to developers will have to play well and integrate seamlessly with these toolsets and design, build, test, release, and monitoring processes.

Lastly, while low-code platforms may provide their own VCS (such as Gitlab), they need to offer easy integration with external repositories like GitHub or Bitbucket. Developers should be able to pull, view, and push changes and merge conflicts between source control systems. They will appreciate low-code platforms that support app versioning from code-level commits to component-level and application-level versioning for releases (including a major or minor version format), allowing multiple versions of the app to co-exist in different deployment environments such as test, stage, or pre-production.

Rule 10: Future-Proof Me, My Apps, and My Employer

A UI developer or backend developer using low-code platforms should be able to develop a complete application with, for example, a basic knowledge of SQL, JS/Java, and zero DevOps, and transform to full-stack developers. Using the Java world as an example, developers don’t need knowledge of advanced JS framework, HTML5, CSS, Bootstrap, Spring, ORM, REST, advanced SQL, native device programming, mobile integration, building and running Docker scripts, or manual integration with CI/CD pipelines.

For technology stack upgrades for apps built using a low-code platform, developers should be able to open apps in the target version of a low-code platform with the latest tech stack (as an example, Angular 14 for UI). The app upgrade should be automatic, and the transition seamless.

Developers and CTOs/CIOs alike are constantly worrying about creating technical debt for the future. Enterprise-friendly low-code platforms are built on an open-standards-based modern tech stack, shift the burden of tech upgrades to the platform, offer source code that is extensible outside of the platform using commonly available skillsets, and play well with a modern enterprise’s toolsets, practice, and standards.

Originally published in Embedded Computing Design

A freshly minted React Native studio, developer tools, API composer toolkit, Angular 12 update, Azure Repos VCS, MLTS for REST APIs, and the list goes on………

WaveMaker is a composable experience development platform powered by the paradigm of low-code. With every new release, we at WaveMaker, attempt to carve out features that help enterprises and professional developers build captivating user experiences in sync with market demand.

Enterprises can embrace composability only when the tools that they adopt enable it. Keeping that in mind, our team at WaveMaker has built the next big thing for the world of composability through low-code—WaveMaker 11.

Here is what we have got for you this year!

 

Create truly native apps with React Native

With around 3.8 billion smartphone users worldwide, mobile app builders are constantly looking at ways to drive better engagement, reduce drop-offs and increase in-app growth. In short, mobile app adoption is driven by the user experience that they offer. 

On the other hand, ISVs and enterprises find it difficult to create consumer-grade mobile applications with run-of-the-mill tools that are either specific to a device or OS or, simply do not have an integrated platform to create both web and mobile apps. Moreover, customers are not content with responsive web experiences force-fitted within mobile apps. The UI and the associated user experience on web apps are just not good enough.

Building compelling user experiences such as smoother onboarding, faster startup, slick transitions, customer-centric features, native feature accessibility, and contextual awareness becomes easier with an app development platform that is tailor-made to create cross-platform native apps. 

 

These are the factors that our team at WaveMaker kept in mind while crafting the WaveMaker React Native studio. In fact, there is an entire WaveMaker UI component library in the React Native studio that lets customers design and build mobile applications leveraging the low-code productivity that WaveMaker is famous for. Let us look at some of the salient features:

• The React Native studio offers platform-specific versions of components so that a single codebase can share code across Android and iOS stores.

• Developers who are already proficient with WaveMaker do not have to learn React Native all over again to develop mobile apps. The business logic can be written in Javascript and the developer experience remains unchanged. 

• Apps built on the React Native studio render exceptional performance owing to the fact that the Javascript code gets interpreted on Hermes(a Javascript engine optimized for React Native).

• Prefabs (pre-fabricated components) built using WaveMaker components can be reused across mobile and web projects. Through prefabs, our customers can accelerate implementations by creating reusable abstractions and codifying user experiences in all form factors.

• Using our “App Chef”, building the mobile project to generate installers for Android and iOS is simply a click away. The WaveMaker build infrastructure will produce completely optimized files ready to be listed on the App Stores.

With React Native studio added to its kitty, WaveMaker is raising the bar in mobile app experience development one notch higher. Additionally, all web applications created in WaveMaker can be also made available as Progressive Web Applications, offering a plethora of choices for our customers.

We truly believe that if you are already a WaveMaker subscriber or considering the platform for your mobile app development efforts, the addition of React Native studio to the platform increases the value of your investment substantially.

To know more about the WaveMaker React Native studio, click here.

 

Move to Angular 12

The application modernization services market size is estimated to grow to $24.8 billion by 2025. A large chunk of this modernization effort can simply be attributed to upgrading the tech stack or modernizing the UI. However, in many cases, the cost of upgradation and the configuration hassles that come with it outweigh the benefits of modernization and as a result, companies are forced to take a step back. 

At WaveMaker, we have always promised that upgrading to the latest version of WaveMaker also includes upgrading to the latest tech stack. This is by default.

WaveMaker 11 GA has upgraded to Angular 12 from Angular 11. This simply means that if you open any of your applications previously built on older versions of WaveMaker in WaveMaker 11, they automatically get upgraded to Angular 12. The ROI in terms of cost and time, in this case, is substantially higher when compared to a manual upgrade.

 

Orchestrate APIs with API Composer Toolkit

Customers need seamless and smooth user experiences. Building such performant applications needs an API backend that is fast. The new release aims to bring composability to the API layer, allowing multiple APIs to be combined together to create unified experience APIs. 

The API Composer Toolkit allows WaveMaker developers to build APIs on top of existing systems that are just right in terms of verbosity and comply with the “Principle of Least Privilege” security rules. Using the Spring framework, this tool allows the creation of unified experience APIs that are designed keeping in mind the  ‘backend for the frontend’ design pattern. With API Composer Toolkit, developers can now leverage the use of a single Java Service API that calls multiple APIs(REST/Swagger/Database) and consolidates their responses into one Response Object thereby reducing time and code complexity.

To know more about the API Composer Toolkit, click here.

 

Get support for Azure Repos VCS

WaveMaker Studio already comes with a version control system that runs within your platform machine. This is based on Gitlab. Additionally, WaveMaker Teams customers can choose to add an external repo of their choice like their own instance of GitLab, GitHub, or BitBucket. With WaveMaker 11, team admins can configure Azure Repos Version Control System (VCS) for storing project source code. You can now easily set up CI/CD pipelines to build and deploy WaveMaker-built applications on top of your enterprise version control system. Not only is there a reduction in the total cost of ownership of WaveMaker, but it also enables Teams customers to use existing IT infrastructure.

 For more information, see Azure Repos Code Repository.

 

MTLS for REST APIs in WaveMaker Apps

WaveMaker has always stayed true to its promise of building applications that are safe, secure, and easy to run. Enabling an additional security layer by configuring MTLS (Mutual Transport Layer Security) for all REST APIs is a feature directed toward building secure apps. With this feature, when you import APIs into WaveMaker to build your apps, you can now set up the SSL connection between WaveMaker and your APIs to use MTLS.

For more information, see MTLS in the WaveMaker application and a detailed blog about MTLS.

 

Supporting MongoDB for Session Persistence

WaveMaker applications are built to 12Factors.app principles. One of the ways WaveMaker apps can be deployed on horizontally scaled infrastructure is to build them to be stateless. With WaveMaker 11, application sessions can now be configured to use a distributed cache. We already support DB, and REDIS and have now added MongoDB to offer more flexibility during the deployment.

 

Debug and monitor with Devtool - a WaveMaker Chrome Extension

Debugging and monitoring your applications can be a daunting task. Make debugging your application easier with WaveMaker Devtool. Installing this chrome extension will let you debug and monitor WaveMaker 11 applications in preview via the ‘inspect’ mode. To further enhance developer productivity, this browser plugin enables developers to track and profile API invocations, page load times, prefab load/render times, etc.

 

Leverage the change in the POM hierarchy

Take advantage of a simple yet powerful pom.xml and create a clear separation of the WaveMaker platform from application-specific dependencies. The new POM contains fewer lines than before and has been remodeled to inherit from the parent POM making it easily readable and comprehensible.

 

Upgrade to the new version of SAML

All WaveMaker projects that are using SAML(spring-security-saml2-core) as a security provider will be migrated to a new version of SAML thus removing the dependency on Spring extensions that have reached the end of life.

 

Collaborate with ‘Teams’ on WaveMaker Enterprise

Teams, a collaborative development environment is now shipped with WaveMaker Enterprise too. Within one enterprise installation, you can onboard multiple Teams, while giving each Team ability to manage projects, roles, and code repositories, add or remove team members, grant permissions, and more. Read this blog to know more about what Teams can do for you.

 

Summary

Our freshly minted React Native studio brings low-code and React Native mobile frameworks together, allowing mobile app composition using prefabs. For a WaveMaker developer, there is no new learning curve; for a mobile developer, there is the flexibility of low-code, the feature-rich app development framework, and the support for easy composability.

This new release is a milestone for WaveMaker. This release, while offering composability at the API layer, allows unified experience development. Additionally, the API Mock Server increases developer productivity with mock APIs that can be created during development. This enables UI development teams to continue building the experiences using low code without the need for a fully developed/functional API. 

WaveMaker 11 GA brings with it a host of other features that increases the value proposition of being subscribed to WaveMaker. From Flex Layout Widgets, Java 11 upgrade, and pagination for imported APIs, to multi-version studios, WaveMaker 11 GA aims to increase the value proposition for WaveMaker subscribers and prospects alike. With this release, we can truly say that composability and seamless native mobile app development is just an upgrade away!

 

WaveMaker 11 GA - Build Components. Compose Journeys. Differentiate the Experience

 

To read the full list of features in WaveMaker 11, please read the release notes here.

 

 

Low-code means different things to different people. While the industry is exploding with low-code platforms, ours is purpose-built for professional developers. If you are already using a low-code platform or shopping for one, there are many critical factors to consider. Read on..

Start with these simple questions first

Will I be the owner of the code?
The code should be yours to mix, extend, customize, transfer or export

What should “no lock-in” mean to me?
No shackles of run-time cost, proprietary architecture, and limited infra options

Will the developers need to be certified to use the platform?
You want quick learning and future-proofing your teams’ skills

Is my vendor’s pricing strategy sustainable?
Scaling up shouldn’t disproportionately increase the cost of doing business

 

 

CODERS love low-code when

• It generates code that they can easily extend.
• API endpoints are generated for all kinds of data.
• They have full application source control.
• There is no runtime dependency on the studio.
• They can mix and maintain their own code.

CXOS like low-code when

• Their teams need no reskilling.
• Their existing process are not disrupted.
• They pay for developer seats, not apps for users.
• It runs on the infrastructure(s) of their choice.
• Licensing model is transparent and promotes scale.

WaveMaker saves

Reduce repetitive development work and save heaps in time and effort.

Accelerate the journey to cloud-native, omnichannel, microservices-based enterprise-grade applications with a composable experience platform powered by low-code.

A McKinsey survey found that in 2021, “companies devoted more resources to their digital and technology capabilities during the pandemic, even as they cut resources from other parts of the business.”

This should come as no surprise given the dramatic change in business models, competitive landscape, and customer behavior seen in the last couple of years. In response, enterprises across the globe are modernizing their application stack to increase agility and performance, and provide compelling customer experiences.

 

What is application modernization?

Application modernization is the process of identifying legacy apps—which are typically on-premise, monolithic, and written in outdated languages—and modernizing them into cloud-native, omnichannel, microservices-based, feature-rich digital applications with intuitive customer experiences.

It is important to note that application modernization is not just about upgrading the software. It is often also accompanied by a modernization of processes to be more agile with shorter release cycles and the transformation of the organization itself to be more experimental and innovative.

 

What does application modernization entail?

An application modernization initiative is driven by changes across the three levels of the app: Experience, integration, and architecture.

 

Experience modernization

Upgrading the user experience (UX) layer for a more modern, responsive, cross-platform design to deliver personalized experiences to customers.

 

API modernization and integration

Making legacy data accessible through channels like the cloud, mobile, web, etc. via APIs. A well-managed API serves as a mechanism for enterprises to leverage their digital assets and build new products around their core capabilities.

 

Architecture modernization

Transforming the architectural foundation of applications by adopting modern technologies to enable agility, scalability, portability, speed-to-market, development efficiency, and ongoing innovation.

 

Cloud-native architecture

Using hybrid architectures including public and private clouds allowing an enterprise to move workloads between the two platforms. Sensitive data can be hosted on a private cloud for security while big data applications can be stored on a public cloud for cost efficiency.

 

Microservices

Leveraging modular, distributed, small, single-purpose applications called microservices that deliver services using APIs. Microservices is poised to take scalability and continuous delivery to the next levels in the years to come.

 

Containerization

Building portability and reducing infra dependency with containers, which wrap up an application in a complete filesystem that has everything it needs to run: code, runtime, system tools, and system libraries. This enables it to run smoothly regardless of any environment.

 

DevOps

Transforming development methodologies from traditional waterfall towards DevOps and DevSecOps models, bringing agility, speed, and efficiency into enterprise teams. It empowers technology teams with experimentation and innovation capabilities, so they can adapt to market needs more effectively.

 

Why do enterprises need application modernization?

Traditionally, applications are built around operational efficiency—delivering the best possible service in the cheapest way they can. Today, this is not enough. Organizations need more. They need:

 

Differentiated and personalized experiences

In the rapidly changing world, customers demand their banking app or online shopping app to deliver the same sticky and personalized experience that their social media and gaming app offers. Legacy applications are unable to deliver this. To meet the customers where they are and deliver on their needs, enterprises need application modernization.

 

Faster time to market

Enterprises can not afford to build an internal team or outsource to an external vendor and wait for months to launch new features. For instance, when the pandemic hit and banks needed to sell online, they couldn’t wait a year to develop that capability. Today, taking digital experiences to the market quickly can be the most powerful competitive advantage. Legacy apps can’t enable that. IT modernization has the potential to reduce defects and time-to-market by up to 60%.

 

Optimizing costs

Legacy monolithic applications are large and take up significant resources to function. Application modernization breaks them down into smaller, manageable microservices, using only the resources that are absolutely necessary. Additionally, by leveraging composability, enterprises and software vendors can also create a repository of functional components that can be retrofit into existing applications, gradually replacing existing functionalities while not disturbing existing processes and thereby, reducing costs. With containers, modern libraries, and dynamic scaling of cloud platforms, organizations can save both real and opportunity costs of running enterprise applications.

 

Ongoing security

Every day, new threats are emerging online. Monitoring and protecting legacy applications can be a mammoth endeavor in itself. Application modernization enables enterprises to build more secure applications, shifting security left in the development process. Moreover, it also makes it easier to address security threats and deploy patches faster and more effectively.

 

Improved developer productivity

Legacy applications are often written in languages and follow processes that do not have the talent pool available to develop and maintain them. Containerization allows polyglot teams to function effectively together, setting up dev environments faster and ensuring that the app works on production environments the same way it did on the developer’s machine. With a composable approach, functional components created by IT teams can further be reused by business developers and implementation teams to quickly modernize smaller bits of applications. In fact, with IT modernization, enterprises increase employee productivity by up to 30% and motivation by up to 40%.

 

Organizational agility

More often than not, application modernization is not merely changing the software to a modern environment. It is accompanied by a cultural change towards building smaller services, deploying them in smaller cycles, receiving feedback, and optimizing continuously. To leverage cloud platforms, containers, DevOps processes, etc., the organization needs to transform itself into an agile and adaptive enterprise—a change that powers sustainable growth and profitability.

 

What are the key challenges in adopting application modernization?

While the benefits are overwhelming, enterprises continue to struggle to adopt application modernization for a range of reasons.

 

Dearth of talent

Application modernization initiatives often involve the transformation of mammoth applications. This not only requires technologists who understand cloud-native, microservices-based app development but also have a clear grasp of business logic and industry acumen. This combination of subject matter expertise and technology skills is a challenge to find.

 

Fear of disruption

IT leaders often fear disruption of their mission-critical enterprise applications, and rightly so. Moreover, the enterprise technology landscape can be so complex and precarious that touching one app can bring the entire deck of cards down. Therefore, creating the right application modernization strategy that ensures a smooth transition from legacy to modern applications remains a challenge.

 

Lack of budgets

Large-scale application modernization projects can be expensive, whether you’re building with an internal team or outsourcing it to an external vendor. Without a clear view of the return on investment, IT leaders struggle without the budgets to launch app modernization projects.

 

Large number of applications

A recent study found that enterprises use an average of 200 applications, with security, engineering, and IT using the most. While some of these are SaaS products, most tend to be legacy apps. Modernizing them all at once would be a significant burden on the company’s bottom line. Without repeatable architectures and composability, the redundancy of work will also be high.

 

IT and business not talking to each other

For any technology initiative to demonstrate value, it needs to meet the needs of the business. When IT and business teams don’t talk to each other, they run the risk of launching application modernization initiatives that don’t drive business results. This affects the organization’s—teams, leaders and the board included—enthusiasm towards application modernization.

 

Past failures

For decades, enterprises have attempted to modernize their applications with little success. A recent BCG study showed that “70% of digital transformations fall short of their objectives, often with profound consequences.” Once bitten, twice shy, IT leaders resist taking the plunge again.

 

What do enterprises need for application modernization success?

Not all application modernization initiatives are the same. To ensure success, enterprises need to adopt an app modernization strategy that works for them. Here are some pointers to keep in mind.

 

Taking a business-centric approach:

It is not uncommon for enterprises to choose the oldest application to modernize first. This app modernization strategy, even when the project is successful, it falls short of the business transformation it can deliver. Instead, we recommend that enterprises choose applications that offer the most valuable business capabilities. When an app modernization initiative delivers ROI, it makes it easier for the entire organization to get behind it.

 

Choosing the right application to modernize:

Gartner suggests that enterprises evaluate potential apps to modernize on six drivers. Three of them are business-related: business fit, business value, and agility; and the other three are technology-related: cost, complexity, and risk. The best opportunities offer transformation across multiple drivers.

 

Building a business case:

Whether you’re beginning a pilot project, or modernizing your nth application, a clear, strong, relevant, outcome-driven business case shields you against the risks of failure in several ways.

 

Creating progressive change:

Instead of entirely dumping the enterprise application for a modernized one, organizations must consider a progressive approach to breaking down monolithic apps for microservices-based ones. By integrating legacy systems with modern apps through APIs, enterprises can continue their business as usual without disruption, while building future-proof tech along the way.

 

Having a holistic view of modernization:

We believe that for application modernization to deliver on its promises, it must impact at three levels: Infrastructure, development, and delivery. A strong app modernization strategy must enable multi-cloud leverage, rapid and error-free containerized delivery to create open standards, multi-channel and microservices-based apps.

 

A modernization accelerator:

Time-sensitive and cost-conscious projects can not wait for months to build. They need the speed that can only be delivered through automation, simplified integrations, dynamic scale, etc. They need to minimize redundancies and reuse existing builds. They need a robust low-code platform to accelerate enterprise application development.

 

Rapid app modernization with low-code

 

What is low-code?

Low-code is a modern approach to agile software development. A low-code development platform helps developers create products visually by abstracting and automating commonly used components. Developers can easily drag and drop commonly used features instead of having to code extensively.

 

How does low-code help in application modernization?

Addressing all of the above challenges intuitively, low-code is one of the best app modernization tools available today.

• By abstracting and automating complex processes, it allows business users and subject matter experts to build applications at speed.
• With the ability to instantly turn existing business logic and services into consumable APIs for reuse, low-code platforms help avoid repetitive work.​​
• Tried, tested, and popular templates & prefabs accelerate the creation of responsive front-ends.
• Custom prefab repositories for user journeys enable composability, accelerating the creation of new apps or modernization of existing ones.
• API modernization and integrations enable enterprises to seamlessly transition from legacy apps to modern ones without disrupting the business.
• It offers significant cost savings, not just in development but also across deployment and long-term cloud usage.
• Developer-seat pricing and portable code enable long-term software investment protection as well.
• It helps build secure apps with RBAC and protection against Top 10 OWASP vulnerabilities.
• It future-proofs development by using the open standards-based stack for seamless extension, customization, and ownership of code.

How does application modernization with low-code work?

A good low-code platform serves as an app modernization tool that abstracts and automates processes at every stage of the software development lifecycle. How to choose the right platform for rapid app modernization with low-code?

While choosing the low-code platform for your application modernization strategy, ask yourself the following questions.

 

1. Is the platform suitable for professional developers?

A good low-code platform can be the app modernization tool of choice for professional coders, who want to build powerful, long-lived applications that offer a differentiated experience on the web and mobile, which can evolve with user needs.

 

2. Is the platform built on open standards?

A good low-code platform needs to have the foundation of open standards in order to ensure an open and extensible approach to application delivery. Also, the platform should use a best-of-breed application stack for developing full-stack applications.

 

3. Does the platform simplify external integration with inbuilt integrations?

A good low-code platform must enable out-of-the-box integrations for data and services. It must offer custom integrations to be built and reused across apps. It must also enable integrations with legacy applications for implementing incremental development.

For instance, the information and digital systems office of the State of Geneva incrementally modernized over 40 applications using WaveMaker while keeping the integrations intact for seamless BAU.

 

4. Does it offer cross-platform development?

A good low-code platform must offer the ability to create applications using a single code base that can adapt to any native platform or operating system, be it iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry/RIM, etc.

Canadian foodservice distributor, Flanagan, leveraged WaveMaker to achieve this. They reached out to WaveMaker to replace the existing application with a modern and responsive interface that provided a better, more consistent user experience across browsers and devices.

 

5. Does it handle scalability and cloud needs?

An end-to-end low-code platform will offer the ability to scale applications and handle private cloud needs. This will be in the form of features for rapid and continuous provisioning, deployment, instant scale-ability, and maximum utilization of resources.

 

6. Does it make it easy to create, share and consume APIs?

A robust platform will take an API-first approach to application delivery, making it easy to import data from any service and bind it to UI components.

 

7. Is it easy to maintain code?

A sustainability-focused low-code platform ensures maintainability, where the code generated follows design patterns, is well-organized, uses standard naming conventions, and generates documentation that developers can understand and maintain.

 

8. How well does the platform handle security?

A secure low-code platform will support flexible authentication and authorization mechanisms as well as integration support for popular identity management systems like AD, LDAP, SSO, and OAuth.

 

9. How well does the platform handle customizations?

A flexible low-code platform will allow customizations in the form of leveraging their existing systems or the ability to allow custom coding or integrations with modern AI and IoT-based systems.

 

10. How can the platform accelerate the development of multiple apps?

A good low-code platform not only accelerates the development of your first app but also strengthens the foundations of ongoing modernization. For instance, with a composable experience platform, you can create custom user journeys such as completing a transaction or creating a dashboard. This user journey can then be used to build new apps — all it takes is to plug and play. At each new app, users can customize it, if needed.

This is what J.J Richards, a WaveMaker customer, did while building a comprehensive set of 10 critical applications using a lean team within just 18 months!

 

11. Is the platform future-proof?

A good low-code platform should have the latest tech stack that allows you to build a modern responsive UI in your apps. The platform should make it easy to move your workload, i.e your applications to multi-clouds with containerization. Furthermore, the platform should be flexible in integrating or adapting to newer technologies and trends entering the market.

Like the Bank of Social Security, the Netherlands did while transitioning their mission-critical applications from the Microsoft framework to Java low-code in mere months.

 

Begin your application modernization journey with WaveMaker’s composable experience platform powered by low-code

WaveMaker is the most open, extensible, and flexible Low-code Platform that complements your enterprise application delivery while keeping in mind the requirements of Software Developers, Citizen Developers/Business Users, IT Architects, and CIOs.

 

Bank of Social Security, Netherlands modernized legacy apps and built new ones with WaveMaker. Read case study

The information and digital systems office of the State of Geneva built 40+ applications with complex integrations using WaveMaker. Read case study

Australian waste management company achieves rapid modernization of 10 critical applications leveraging WaveMaker. Read case study

Canada’s largest independent foodservice distributor improved user experience with WaveMaker. Read case study

Ask for a demo today!

The years 2020-21 will be remembered for the pandemic and the subsequent resurgence. It will also be remembered for the time where over half the world’s population pulled out their mobile phones to buy groceries, order food, get paid for services, shop for clothes, and even pay for healthcare. While the pandemic ravaged nations, humans quickly adapted to new ways of transacting. Financial transactions through almost any app of any industry became a reality and more or less a force of habit.

What made that drastic leap possible was set in motion years ago with the advent of Open APIs. The emergence of public APIs and regulatory changes such as PSD2 spearheaded the ‘Open Banking' revolution. A flurry of fintech companies followed, offering to ‘embed' financial services in non-financial apps. Financial capabilities once considered the privilege of banks, became a necessary touchpoint in the customer journey of any brand. While banks still held dominion over regulatory licensing, fintech was able to squeeze in financial offerings between the layers of ‘bank' and ‘brand' with alacrity: Thus leading to the emergence and rise of ‘embedded finance'.

In fact, according to Juniper Research, in 2021 alone, the ‘embedded finance’ market is said to be valued at $43 billion and is set to soar by 215% by 2026.

 

Early Adopters and Present Trends

Uber and Lyft are some of the most well-known early adopters of embedded finance.. Tackling the simple pain-point of cab riders (searching for cash, taking out a credit card, toggling between apps), Uber introduced embedded payment in its cab booking app. Its early success in alleviating a major pain point in customer experience spawned a rush for embedded payments in large, digital savvy, non-traditional players ranging from e-commerce (Amazon) to food delivery apps (Deliveroo). Fintech with technical know-how and financial acumen followed suit with offerings customizable for banks and brands.

This led to the emergence of another layer between fintech and banks, what is called Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS). Unlike Open Banking that offered only data, BaaS offers APIs for banking services that fall under the ambit of regulatory services. The fact that these APIs could now be leveraged in any digital customer journey opened up a plethora of value propositions for brands, hitherto not possible--retailers providing a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later'(BNPL) option, car dealers offering loans and insurance, and utility providers launching wallets.

The customer-share pie for financial services became open to all.

What started as embedded payments has now evolved into multiple use cases such as embedded insurance, embedded banking, embedded credit, and embedded investment. The use case list has expanded to every industry from retail to HR and has the potential to morph further. While digital-savvy, large enterprises are quick to adopt, small businesses are also jumping into the fray. Uber which was only offering payment services, now offers loans to its drivers and an Uber debit card for a checking account to its users. On the other hand, banks, both new and traditional, are opening up new avenues to reach out to their customers.

For brands, it is the customer journey that matters. For banks, it is high volume and less cost. A win-win in any case.

 

Speed Bumps in API Adoption

If we look at banking trends over the decades, the underlying driving force that has spawned thousands of new players in the financial services industry is most surely -- APIs. From Open Banking to now Banking-as-a-Service, companies that have proactively embraced the evolution of APIs have been successful in embedding financial services. However, it is easier said than done.

Banks/ Providers typically have an API-only approach. There is no touch and feel. The graphical elements or abstractions on top of these APIs need to be recrafted and customized per brand, per use case. With virtually every bank jumping into the bandwagon, brands (especially SMBs) look for technical expertise to evaluate and buy from the exhaustive list of APIs. Navigating the labyrinth of APIs would also involve sourcing and integrating APIs from multiple providers, brands, and third parties. To build a digital layer over the APIs, the brand has to either depend on its own IT and available tools, or they have to turn to fintech or ISVs that can help them leverage the power of these APIs on an integrable platform.

 

Think Beyond APIs: Go Low-Code

In the end, APIs are a means to an end.

Businesses spend inordinate amounts of money and time to consume complex APIs and launch embedded finance services. Traditional hand-coding while integrating with APIs is cumbersome and can lead to latency in time-to-market. Subsequently, many businesses lose their first-mover’s advantage.

Low-code platforms can help businesses in two ways to gain momentum:

1. Businesses can perform quick roll-outs of showcase applications and MVPs on a low-code platform, thereby gaining a sense of the market pulse and figuring out what works and what does not.
2. BaaS providers can use low-code to enable hyper-accelerated app development by provisioning ready-to-use contextual components over their APIs, which can be easily provided as a bundled financial offering for business apps.

A low-code platform can now act as an aggregator of financial and non-financial APIs and provide a contextual layer that is customized per brand/bank.

Battling out on fierce financial terrain, are large and small brands and FIs. Whether it is ‘Buy’ or ‘Build’, businesses, fintech, and ISVs agree that application development platforms need to offer two very important aspects while integrating APIs: flexibility and security.

Low-code platforms that come with inbuilt security and a “whatever-whenever-wherever” facilitation effectively neutralize these two major concerns faced by incumbents of the financial services industry.

 

To Embed or Not is Not a Question!

Over the past two years, industries have shown resilience and adaptability like never before. Embedding finance into a consumer app has become a norm. A norm that took wings years before but gained momentum in the past two years. The hyper-acceleration of embedded finance in financial and non-financial applications is the phenomenon of businesses reacting to unforeseen circumstances in the most creative manner. Low-code platforms like WaveMaker can assist small and large brands in consuming and integrating disparate APIs with ease and provide a contextual consumer interface abstraction over them.

The synergy created by low-code, embedded finance, rapid application tools, and digital transformation in general, are shaping the face of what creative adaptability looks like.

Forrester finds that, in 2020, over 27% of organizations improved their customer experience (CX) index scores, a big number compared to the few who were making progress in the years before.

“To emerge successfully from this global crisis, brands must build experiences that help them engage with their customers at an emotional level,” wrote Forrester SVP, Sharyn Leaver.

So, how do enterprises engage customers at an emotional level when the predominant
channel of interaction is now digital?

By delivering insights-driven, personalized, contextual, end-to-end digital customer experiences anytime, anywhere, across channels and devices.

To achieve this, at accelerated time-to-value and scale, enterprises need a springboard: A Digital Experience Platform.

Gartner defines a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), as an integrated set of technologies, based on a common platform, that provides a broad range of audiences with consistent, secure, and personalized access to information and applications across many digital touchpoints.

 

At WaveMaker, we visualize it in three layers:

• Foundational Business Engine
• Digital Engagement Hub, which brings together APIs from the business engine
• Customer Experience Suite, which is the UX layer, made up of apps

Most enterprises have the business engine and the digital engagement hub, even if some of them might be legacy software. However, the digital customer experience layer needs to respond to rapidly evolving needs, offering opportunities for experimentation and rapid implementation. It is here that low-code can help. Here’s how.

 

Transforming applications to a customer-oriented approach

In most industries, IT is designed around the organizational structure, not customer needs. For instance, the technology architecture of a retail organization is driven by the supply chain — divided into inventory, point of sale, customer relationship management, e-commerce, etc. So, if a customer wants to check on the company’s website whether a product is available in their nearby store, it would be next to impossible because the e-commerce engine doesn’t speak to the inventory management system.

A digital experience platform can enable enterprises to address such use cases without elaborate investments in product development. When the business engine is built on customer-oriented architecture, deploying applications as microservices, loosely coupled, and API-driven with functional encapsulation, the low-code customer experience suite empowers you to drag and drop any combination of features and functionalities to create a new app. It effortlessly abstracts the various business engines to create apps with little manual programming.

 

Leveraging data for personalized digital experience

No customer wants to search and scroll endlessly on their shopping app to find the product they want. Nor do they want to manually drag and drop features into their interface to personalize it themselves. They want personalized experiences that are meaningful, engaging, and, most importantly, efficient.

A digital experience platform can leverage advanced analytics to deliver that. The low-code customer experience suite can form the abstraction over the analytics engine to bring together user, interaction, and business data to create a 360-degree view of the customer. It can enable dynamic user experiences, ensuring continuity of customer relationships, displaying cross-sell/up-sell opportunities contextually.

 

Delivering omnichannel engagement

In the era of ‘hand-off’ between devices, customers demand a smooth omnichannel experience from enterprises. For instance, an e-commerce customer today wants to add items to their cart from any device, anywhere, anytime, and purchase them all together when they’re ready.

Digital experience platforms are built to enable this seamlessly. By integrating various digital business engines, the low-code customer experience suite allows you to build omnichannel customer journeys — effortlessly moving from one channel to another, ensuring continuity of engagement across devices.

 

Enabling dynamic content delivery

Traditional applications are optimized for short-term transactions, while digital experience platforms are built to create long-term customer value. For instance, an e-commerce application is typically built around capabilities like search and checkout, focussing on the efficiency of shopping. But customers today are seeking more engagement. Perhaps why social commerce — blending of social media like Instagram and shopping — is gaining popularity, as it stresses the ‘experience' of shopping.

The digital customer experience suite enables enterprises, especially in industries like banking, media, retail, or fashion to design websites, portals, apps, etc. to deliver personalized, contextual, relevant, and timely content to improve stickiness and loyalty.

 

Ensuring end-to-end digital service

Today, saying “you need to come to the store to get this done” is a sure-shot way of losing a customer, especially given that the cost of switching to a new provider is the lowest it has ever been. However, traditional shelf-ware is heavily restrictive in the functionalities they can offer.

Digital experience platforms enable you to deliver end-to-end digital service. With the customer engagement suite, enterprises can:

• Build and deploy new applications quickly for customers
• Enable dashboards with predictive analytics for employees
• Create chatbots to automate answers to common concerns
• Automate data collection in the form of feedback through email, SMS, or app notifications
• Streamline product and business innovation based on customer behavior and preferences

In 2018, PwC found 32% of customers say they would stop doing business with a brand after one bad experience, even if they had loved it before. On the other hand, customers are willing to pay a 7-16% price premium for a good experience. This becomes even more telling in the post-pandemic era.

Today, just offering a digital avenue isn’t enough. The digital channel(s) is the storefront, relationship manager, customer service, marketing, sales, product catalog — all rolled into one. The true success of a digital channel is in dynamically adapting to customer needs. A digital experience platform helps you achieve that.

With a robust low-code customer experience suite built with WaveMaker, you can accelerate your digital experience platform journey significantly. Its ability to provide features such as a composable architecture, scalability, cloud-native capabilities, customizability, repeatability and security strengths enable your application teams to create differentiated experiences at a fraction of the time and cost.

To see how low-code can accelerate your digital platform journey, try a demo of WaveMaker today.

Authored by Gopi Mishra, Principal Architect - Development, WaveMaker, Inc

Enterprises are increasingly using ‘Direct-to-Consumer’ digital initiatives. They are parallelly digitizing their internal processes with increased velocity. These changes bring with them a tide of security threats. From insider threats to exposed marketplaces, there is always a security hazard lurking around the corner--one that can assume mammoth proportions if security doesn’t become an ingrained part of application development. In fact, according to a report by cyber security firm 'Checkpoint', cyberattacks on organizations worldwide jumped by 29% during the first half of 2021 as compared to the same period in the previous year.

So if an enterprise is adopting the web, mobile, and cloud, and directly selling to the consumer, it would be paramount that the IT team prioritizes the security of its product, and most importantly ingrain the best practices of weaving security into the development process.

Who better to don the mantle of defense than the ‘developer’? After all, when it comes to the security of an application, ‘developers’ are the first line of defense!

 

Defense-In-Depth

A ‘Defense-In-Depth’ approach to security for applications is a layered approach to security. What it essentially means, is that developers should take necessary action to mitigate security risks at every layer, be it the front-end (client), middle-tier, database services, or even the network layer. To do that, developers need to collaborate with various stakeholders: customers, DevOps teams, IT-networking, and the security teams handling the necessary infrastructure.

A developer has to have the same approach while developing secure applications using a low-code platform. WaveMaker comes fortified with SAST tested auto-generated code that is Veracode^TM verified. While developers working with WaveMaker can rest assured of the inherent security of the platform, there are a few best practices that a one can follow while using WaveMaker low-code to develop secure applications.

 

Embed security using WaveMaker

Developers need to think about security primarily in three areas: Data, Business Logic, and Coding. Data in itself could be static or could be in transmission. Depending on its state, the developer needs to keep an eye out for the following checkpoints:

 

Data at Rest:

• Ensure that no personally identifiable information is stored at the client-side (in-cache of web application or in device storage of a mobile application)
• For mobile applications, store relevant and critical information in secure elements
• Avoid storing information such as service credentials and connection strings in an accessible file. If stored, ensure that there is a proper authentication and authorization mechanism in place to access these files
• If possible, use rooted/jailbreaking detection for mobile apps.
  Cordova provides plugins for the same. This can be added to the application by importing the plugin to the application. Plugins can be imported as described here.

 

Data in Motion:

Secure data in motion from being intercepted

• Use HTTPS for all calls between the client and the server-side
• Use TLSv1.2
• Ensure that the data between client and server-side is encrypted
• Use updated security certificates that have the latest and secure cipher algorithms
• Ensure validity of certificates. In case, certificate pinning is used on mobile applications ensure that certificates are renewed before expiry and app uploaded to app/play store to avoid apps breaking in production
• Protect API calls with authentication
• Do not include PII data as a part of a GET call

 

Business Logic:

• Use multi-factor authentication
• Have a password policy and validation
• Include input validation as a part of data length, type, and white-listed characters
• Do not include passwords as a part of the ‘Remember Me’ functionality
• Do not provide the reason for the failure of authentication in event of a validation failure

 

Coding Best practices :

• Do not log sensitive information like passwords
• Include all loggings as a part of the ‘isDebugEnabled’ flag so that they can be disabled in the production
• If ‘Request’ and ‘Response’ are logged or can be logged in debug mode then create filters for sensitive data
• Use the latest versions of third-party plugins that are imported into the application
• Use the latest SDKs/APIs that are tested against vulnerabilities
• Flush out session data during logout
• Error stack trace should not have sensitive information. It is always advisable to add custom messages as error messages rather than simply passing or printing the error stack trace which may have application class/file names or sensitive data.
• WaveMaker is Veracode^TM certified and the auto-generated code is protected against OWASP Top 10 security risks. However, while designing an application the developer should keep these risks in mind and design the application to safeguard it against them (For a greater list of guidelines, follow this OWASP cheat sheet]
• When using WaveMaker low-code platform, ensure that Veracode^TM-like scans are performed for both JavaScript and Java code

 

Security is an inarguable conclusion

While security best practices can help developers immensely, what is more important, is that they develop a ‘security mindset’. Security must be a priority and not an afterthought. While developing applications using ‘Agile Practices’, security should be a criterion in the ‘Definition of Done’ of user stories. Bigger pieces should be taken up as enabler stories. Regular penetration tests should be performed early in the development stage and should be a part of every sprint release. A security loophole caught early in the game will alleviate future pain points, bring down costs and reduce technical debt.

Being secure is not an option, it is an inarguable conclusion. Developers with a finer sense of security will hold this as their mantra.

 

Author’s Bio

Gopi is a software architect with over 15 years of experience in the financial tech and IT domain including 9 years he spent on mastering mobile architecture design. He presently leads a team of low-code developers and mentors them about best practices in software development. In his free time, he loves to read non-fiction, watch history channels or binge-watch movies.
Write to Gopi Mishra at info@wavemaker.com