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Is No/Low-Code the Key to IT Nirvana?


 Unless you've had your head in the sand for the past year or so, you've seen the phrases low-code and no-code bandied about quite frequently everywhere you look.  You've probably wondered if this is something new that's here to stay or just a "flash in the pan."  Although the terms have been in the fore of the IT trade publications recently, Low Code Development Platforms (LCDP) (and the corresponding No Code Development Platforms) have been in existence since 2011.  Their roots can be traced to the 90's with 4th generation programming languages and GUI-assisted programming paradigms, e.g. IBM VisualAge for Basic, which was discontinued in 1998.

For those of you who aren't familiar with either, the premise is that these platforms allow someone to quickly build applications using a WYSIWYG interface and a "click and configure" paradigm to
Isn't this the source code to Roblox?

rapidly build full applications with little or no coding required.  You use something akin to a playing card that represents an action or integration which you string together to build a sequentially ordered process that mimics a business process that you need executed.

The resulting applications also benefit from the capabilities of the platform.  For example, security best practices that protect the application and its users from the top 10 OWASP attacks could be something that is applied automatically (if the platform's runtime supports this, of course).

Is that all there is?

To quote Peggy Lee, "is that all there is"...to a successful IT integration strategy?  And why is IT integration even a part of this conversation?

Let's answer the last question first.  Simply put, any company that is more than a few years old will have done things like acquired another company with different technology solutions, purchased now-defunct technology platforms, or simply did not upgrade older versions of major COTS solutions such as ERP, CRM, and others.  Along the way, these companies have also continued to invest in current technologies in order to keep the business humming along.

This is significant because IT sprawl has always been a problem.  But given the claim I made in my last entry, Data is the New Oil, the real value in a company is not in its IT systems but in the data they contain, as this data ultimately describes the business, its customers, and everything in between.

Therefore, integration is the real challenge in business, since this allows a business to leverage all of its data, and this isn't a new problem either.  Enterprise Application Integration strategies and Service Oriented Architectures, popular concepts in the 1990's and 2000's, attempted to overcome this challenge but failed horribly.  Instead, a new operating model needed to be developed, one which made integration less painful and allowed the business to unlock the value in their data.

This is real, folks

Analyst firm Markets and Markets "expects the global Application Programming Interface (API) management market size to grow from USD 1.2 billion in 2018 to USD 5.1 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 32.9% during the forecast period. The major growth drivers of the market include growing demand for API-led connectivity, and need for public and private APIs to accelerate digital transformation."

Since integration is critical to a business' success (as evidenced by the size of the market and the expected monstrous 32.9% CAGR), we have to look at where no-code/low-code platforms - I'll abbreviate this to NCLC - fit in the context of integration in order to answer the Peggy Lee question.  

Is integration even possible with NCLC platforms?  If so, is it effective?  

The answer, unsurprisingly, is "it depends."  Because you, as the producer of assets using an NCLC platform, have little to no control over the facilities that platform provides to integrate into your systems, you are at their mercy when it comes to integration.  Sure, all of the leading vendors in this space will provide access to common systems like email and others, but when you step out of the commodity systems space and into the premium application market (e.g. ERP) then the integration capabilities of these platforms have to be examined more thoroughly.

What happens, then, if the platform doesn't account for the way you have your SAP environment configured?  Tough luck.  Your CRM system has custom objects that you need access to?  Maybe you'll get lucky.  Can you unlock the value in your data via an integration strategy that's built on "tough luck" and "maybe you'll get lucky?"  Probably not.

Sugar and spice, and everything nice

What's really needed is the flexibility to code if you need to.  Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS, which the link refers to as cloud based integration; this is incorrect since on-premise solutions can be included as well) provides that flexibility while also giving some of the benefits of NCLC.  Solutions like MuleSoft's Anypoint platform, Dell Boomi, Jitterbit, Workato and others provide this flexibility in varying amounts to allow you to quickly develop the integrations necessary to achieve true IT nirvana while not (necessarily) requiring coding skills to produce meaningful results.

This is not to say that NCLC platforms have no benefit - they absolutely do.  But their benefit lies in a different direction that addresses ease of production rather than ease of integration.

In summary, although NCLC platforms have a variety of benefits the true objectives of a business must be clear:  are they to be quick and easy, or flexible and adaptable?  In my next blog entry, we'll examine some of the required capabilities of any integration platform to allow you truly meet your strategic goals.

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