Many enterprises are adopting low-code platforms for
their ability to enable a broad range of developers to rapidly build and deploy
custom web and mobile
apps—without
the need for time-consuming coding.
Organisations focused on delivering applications for
innovation, customer engagement, operational efficiency, or legacy migration
are recognising the inherent business value and time-to-market advantages of
low-code development platforms.
With business demand for custom applications
soaring, it’s clear that traditional development approaches simply can’t keep
pace. According to Gartner, through 2021, market demand for app development
will grow at least five times faster than IT capacity to deliver it.
So what exactly is a ‘low-code’ development
approach? How can it help organisations meet surging demand for applications?
What are the key capabilities of a low-code development platform?
The next step for IT and business leaders is to
evaluate platforms carefully and choose the approach that meets your
organisation’s needs, now and in future.
Defining low-code development
Forrester defines low –
code development platforms as: Products and/or cloud
services for application
development that employ visual, declarative
techniques instead of programming and are available to customers at low- or
no-cost in money and training time to begin, with costs rising in proportion of
the business value of the platforms.
There are several
important features of any low-code development platform:
1. Model-driven development
Low-code platforms offer
more intuitive ways to build applications, minimising the use of
coding. Model-driven development (MDD) uses visual models for
defining an application’s data models, business logic, user interfaces, etc.
This approach enables a
range of users—from professional developers to citizen developers—to visually
model full-stack web and mobile applications. Using visual tools can result
in 10x productivity gains over traditional approaches. As capability
matures and organisations begin to scale, some organisations have seen up
to 20 times productivity.
2. Reusability
Productivity can be
further accelerated with low-code development platforms that promote
reusability through an App Store populated with out-of-the-box templates,
widgets, plug-ins, business components, and connectors to emerging
technologies.
The platform may also
offer a private app store, whereby an organisation can distribute
company-specific IP for reuse across development teams. In either scenario,
building apps becomes more like visually orchestrating the necessary building
blocks, versus reinventing the wheel each project.
3. Support beyond just the build phase
It’s easy to fall into the
trap of viewing low-code platforms only as a way to speed the build phase. In
reality, many platforms are designed to support the entire app lifecycle:
design, build, deploy, manage and iterate.
As such, usually include
collaboration tools, agile project management, cloud-native deployment,
application governance tools, and feedback tools. This is an important part of
the time-to-market advantage, with a seamless way to move apps along the
lifecycle, particularly in terms of deployment.
4. Cloud-native deployment
Some low-code development
platforms offer the flexibility to deploy and manage applications in the cloud
of your choice, or even on premises. Offering automated deployment along with a
cloud-native, stateless architecture enables out-of-the-box high availability
and fail over to support large-scale deployments, particularly in an enterprise
context.
Key benefits of a low-code platform
In many business sectors
today, the barriers to entry for digital competitors are so low that new
players are coming out of nowhere and disrupting industries through
technology-led products, services, and business models.
To stay ahead of the
competition, organisations must constantly find new ways to do things better,
faster and cheaper; and to engage customers and partners in new ways. The
challenge is that, while the demand for custom apps has never been higher,
traditional development approaches simply can’t keep pace.
It’s clear that businesses
need a faster way to deliver applications—and low-code development platforms
provide a proven way to shorten time-to-value for new applications. The fundamental
value of a low-code development platform is that it brings IT and the business
together, enabling more rapid, iterative, and collaborative development.
Applications can be
rapidly built, seamlessly deployed and easily changed—all without the need for
low-level coding. In addition, these platforms provide an excellent
communication mechanism to align business and IT stakeholders, thereby ensuring
greater software quality and more successful business outcomes.
The next step for IT and business leaders is to evaluate platforms
carefully and choose the approach that meets your organisation’s needs, now and
in future.
Source : information
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