Building Platforms for Rapid Application Development

Chintana WilamunaSolutions Architect

WSO2

Agenda

• Existing landscape and why we need a better approach?• A platform for developing applications• Platform characteristics• Creating a platform

Solving business problems

Business Problem

Statements

Technical Solutions

Customers

Partners

Business Objectives

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Technical solutions

Multiple Systems

Multiple systems

• Each system with a different–Architecture–Programming language–Database technology– Integration APIs–License–COTS/OSS/Bespoke etc…

• Configure to achieve overall business goals• Change business processes to match what’s doable with

the system?!

Challenges

• Consumers expect better/efficient experiences

Challenges cont.

• Increased pace of technology adoption–Cloud - nothing to maintain, pay as you go–Containers–Machine learning/AI–Bots

• Keep up and provide new user experiences• Become the first to execute - grab market share• Iterate quickly and add new business capabilities

New technology solutions for digitally transforming a business

Technical solution characteristics

• Develop MVP quickly (minimum viable product)• Iteratively improve

–Iterative development•Agile!–Iterative architecture

•Within the 1st month do you want to handle 10k TPS?•Geo distributed HA requirements?•0 - 3 - 6 - 12 month architecture

• Understand the audience• Platform for business solutions

Providing a business platform

• Driven through APIs–New and existing business capabilities

• Integrated into existing systems–ERP / CRM

• Composed of pieces - microservices–Implementation practice

• Unified user identity• Deployed on containers• Measured through real time analytics

–Can’t improve what you cannot measure

A platform - Driven through APIs

• API Management practice - services exposed through APIs

• API first approach to design services• Controlling granularity of APIs

–An API for each service?–High level APIs that wraps couple of services?

• Best practices and patterns?–Follow what’s most aligned with business–Evaluate, adopt and refine

Driven through APIs - Example

• Initially - Generic API targeting for app developers–Goal: use better/rich UIs and apps to get more subscribers

• Refactored–Concentrate on APIs optimized for devices–An API for each device - optimized for device devs–Now 1000+ devices (1000+ APIs!)

• Design the API for your audienceWhy you probably don’t need an API strategy - https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2013/09/15/why-you-probably-dont-need-an-api-strategy/

A platform - Driven through APIs

Business Enablement Platform

API Management

Tactical Decisions

A platform - integrated into existing services

• Connectors to cloud and on-prem systems• Integration templates/recipes• Canonical model for

–Transformation–Logging–Data management - record, filter, push to other systems

• Integration first language - Ballerina - http://ballerinalang.org/

A platform - composed of pieces

• Microservices - “micro” = scope of functionality• One single business function• Easy to

–Deploy, test, and scale

• Short running–Boot up in 1 - 2 seconds

• No app server overhead• Recomposable services

Composed of pieces - Example

• Purposefully built for building middleware servers• OSGi programming model

–Not exposed to external developers

• Incredibly productive to mix and match components–Aggregate, remove features to a common runtime–Run several features on one JVM

• Unified services across different products–Security–Logging–Clustering and caching

A platform - integrated to existing systems

Business Enablement Platform

API Management Integration

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

A platform - unified identity

• Identity management–Internal/external users–Leveraging existing user identities (federation)

• Common identity framework for new apps/services• Leverage existing user repositories

–LDAP, Active Directory, DBs

• Leverage existing security mechanisms–Security gateways–Identity providers

A platform - unified identity - Example

Wednesday 22nd

Security Track

A platform - with unified identity and access mgt.

Business Enablement Platform

API Management Integration

Identity & access

management

TacticalDecisions

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

A platform - mobile and IoT

• Enterprise capabilities on mobile devices• Leverage existing devices• Existing user identities

–Login with Facebook, Google, phone number etc…• Rich, responsive UIs• Capture sensor data for better UX

–Context/location sensitive–Beacons–NFC

A platform - mobile and IoT - Example

Wednesday 22nd

IoT Track

A platform - mobile/IoT enhanced

Business Enablement Platform

API Management Integration

Identity & access

management

Mobile and IoT

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

A platform - analytics

• Monitor and measure–Existing services–Performance/load–Business KPIs

• Identify real time patterns–Real time notifications–Real time dashboards–Real time actions

• Being a more proactive business with predictive analytics

Enablement platform

Business Enablement Platform

API Management Integration

Identity & access

management

Mobile and IoT

Real time analytics

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

Tactical Decisions

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Business Enablement Platform for Digital Transformation

• Solve specific business problems• Conducive to rapid evolution of business requirements• High availability and scale out• Deployment / test automation for new services• Data APIs and governance / compliance• Location based responses• Maintenance and security updates

Creating a business enablement platform

• Do you need everything?–API, Integration, IAM, Mobile/IoT, Analytics? No–Right solution architecture based on requirements

• Your application/business goals–MVP–Iteratively develop product + architecture–Repeatable process from day 1

•Service creation / deployment / testing / API enable•Data services

Creating a business enablement platform cont.

• MVP to capture end-to-end functionality–Just the capabilities you need–No less, no more–Capture non functional requirements in the context of MVP

functionality

• Simple straightforward architectures–Don’t over engineer

• Demonstrate business value–Learn from failure

Creating a business enablement platform cont.

• Planning for HA–Availability requirements

•E.g. Gateways, KMs, internal/external publishing–Geo distributed–What’s required for 0 - 3 - 6 - 12 months

• Establish devops practices• Platform vs. standalone app? Does it apply to me?

–What’s your approach?–How can we help to improve?

Come and Talk to Solutions Architecture team! :) (shameless plug)

Questions?

Thank You!