Explore the unique requirements of enterprise application development and learn how to choose the right enterprise application development software.

Enterprise Application Development is a complex process of creating application for business purposes. They are complex, customized for critical business requirements and can be deployed on the cloud, on a variety of platforms across corporate networks, intranet etc. Designing and developing such enterprise applications means satisfying hundreds or thousands of separate requirements.

How are Enterprise Applications Different ?

An enterprise applications are large multi user, multi developer and a multi component applications that can work on large chunks of data and utilise extensive parallel processing, network distributed resources and complex logic. These applications can be deployed across multiple platforms and operate simultaneously with many other applications.Enterprise applications are business oriented and deployed to meet specific business requirements. They encode business policies, processes, rules and entities and are developed with specific business requirements in mind. Hence, these applications require special tools in the form of enterprise application development software to cater to their unique needs.

Traditional Enterprise Application Development Software and their Shortcomings

Though traditional application development methodologies, are known for having clear objectives, stable requirements and measurable progress of development, they are time consuming, have minimum iterations and there is very little customer interaction. Hence, traditional application development methodologies and tools are unable to fulfill the demands of modern enterprise applications.The failure is not just for web applications, traditional methodologies are not a perfect match for mobile application development as well. Some of their shortcomings are

• These Application are linear and predictive. They follow sequential flow and make any new changes time consuming and difficult
• Applications are low in productivity due to high lead times and time consuming.
• The application development Involves stringent documentation and reviews at every stage which are done by developers mostly. Thus the business imperatives naturally take a back seat.
• User or the customer is involved at the beginning during the requirements stage and then in the end delivery during user acceptance stage. Their is no active involvement from users in the intermediate phases which lead to many changes in the end thus increasing cost and time
• Elements have to be designed and constructed from the ground up as per project requirements and hence, are not reusable.

Hence it can be summed up that Enterprises today are in the look out for better tools, applications and software as the traditional methodologies could not gain much success.

Changing Trends in Enterprise Application Development

New and Emerging trends in Enterprise Application is impacting application development in a big way. Let us see the key trends :

Usability (UX) – Usability is the norm of the day in when it comes to Enterprise Architecture. Users expect their apps to be more intuitive and provide more relevant content suited to their own business needs. In the coming year, developers will have to focus more on ease of usability and responsive design.

Consumerization of IT– Consumerization of IT has impacted Enterprise Application’s changing landscape. Technology today is consumer oriented. Business imperatives are given utmost importance.

Commodity Computing (cloud), horizontal scaling – Applications today are hosted , developed and customised on the cloud . Cloud computing has increased accessibility and ease of operation for users of Enterprise application development.

Rapid Application Delivery & Low-code Development – RAD or Low-code development is the new trend in Enterprise. Minimal Coding is making Enterprise Application Development more business centric and easy. Customers are involved at each phase of development.

Loose Coupling (APIs, Microservices, Composable architecture) – With the introduction of Loose Coupling and microservices enterprise applications are delivered as an independent runtime service with a well defined API. The Microservices approach allow faster delivery of smaller incremental changes to an application.

Traditional methodologies of application development are very rigid and process oriented. They involve a series of steps like requirement, definition, planning, building, testing and deployment which lead to high cycle times at each stage. The traditional format requires projects with large teams and strict roles while maintaining stringent documentation and review at every stage of development. The customer interaction is minimal which takes place during the beginning and the end of the project. Every element that is designed in a project needs to be designed from scratch and is not reusable. All this translates to,

Choosing the right enterprise application development platforms

Modern enterprise Application development focusses on reducing application development timelines and at the same time addresses a whole gamut of other related aspects of modern web applications required for today’s modern Enterprise. Modern day application is rapid in terms of timeline, cost, and usability . We call them RAD ( Rapid Application Development) and they emphasizes on:

Ready-made Application Infrastructure: Providing a browser based development environment. No more hassle of installing, setup, ongoing configuration etc.

Usability: Making sure good-looking and rich user interactive applications can be developed. Increased attention to creating pixel perfect responsive UI applications on both Desktop as well as Mobile Devices.

Full Stack Development: By leveraging modern client side frameworks and server side technologies, Modern RAD is now capable to auto generate code for the entire application (client side, Server side as well as integration touch points to external systems and services via APIs).

Pre-Defined Best of Breed Technology Stack: Providing a pre-defined well tested best of breed of software components as the technology stack for application development. No more worries about enterprises having to maintain multiple teams to support complex permutations of technology stacks.

Business User Participation: Simplifying the application development process such that technical business users can work together with professional developers in developing the application. This greatly benefits enterprises as business user comes in with domain knowledge and can validate the implementation, as it is being developed.

API-led Integration: Providing REST API based integration approach such that application can easily integrate to an internal, external as well as Cloud based service. This allows for faster, easier development and avoids reinventing the wheel again.

WaveMaker – the ideal enterprise application development software

WaveMaker is an award winning rapidly Enterprise application development and delivery platform that helps create enterprise grade web and mobile apps. With over 10 years of market presence, thousands of developers use it to create applications 67% faster.

WaveMaker’s software platform revolutionizes how enterprises build, deliver and manage modern custom applications, improving business agility and fostering innovation. WaveMaker leverages the latest trends and technologies in Rapid App Development (RAD) such as multi-device auto-responsive interfaces and componentized app assembly, Docker for app-optimized container deployment on private infrastructures, and APIs and Microservices Architecture (MSA) for scalable integration.

• Visual development that delivers web and mobile apps at the speed of business
• Instant migration of legacy applications based on proprietary technologies such as Lotus Notes, MS Access, Oracle Forms, etc.
• Centralized IT for all the applications with hassle-free continuous integration and release management
• Single platform that works for business users as well as professional developers
• Future-proof platform that is based on open standards and technologies trusted by millions of developers
• No vendor lock in with flexible deployment and export options Offers the lowest total cost of ownership and transparent pricing

Get Started with a free 30 day trial of WaveMaker Enterprise Web Application Platform.