How to manage risk with open-source software

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Open-source software might be free to use, but that doesn’t mean it’s free of obligations. With threats becoming more complex, security must be a top priority.

As the adoption of open-source software continues to grow rapidly, software development teams must go to ever greater lengths to manage risk. Low-code development platforms (LCDPs) have further added to that risk surface by bringing development outside the IT department, potentially resulting in a rise of shadow IT.

Despite this, the use of open-source libraries can deliver tremendous benefits to businesses by delivering specific functionalities without developers having to build them from scratch. Open source is also a natural fit for low code, especially at a time when at least 82% of firms consider custom app development outside IT important for driving growth. Moreover, Gartner predicts that two thirds of all business apps will be created using low-code platforms by 2024.

These developments are among the defining characteristics of modern digital transformation strategies. This is also why open source accounts for as much as 90% of all code in today’s web and cloud apps, with the average software application relying on at least 500 open-source dependencies. As such, the sheer size and proliferation of open source has made it a key target for threat actors, with inevitable vulnerabilities leading to a significant increase in open-source risk. The grouping of open source and low code can, potentially, further expand that risk surface by letting it grow far beyond the auspices of the IT department.

Of course, that’s not to say businesses should scale back their adoption of open-source and low-code – not at all. Together, these innovations are vital for helping businesses adapt and scale rapidly in an era of constant change. But as is always the case with any innovation, new risks arise that need to be managed from the outset. Thus any digital transformation must be secure by design as such that security becomes a driver of innovation rather than a barrier. Here’s what that means for open-source low-code software development:

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How the combination of open-source and low-code enable total data portability

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With a combination of open source software and low code development, organizations can be freed from vendor lock-in and maintain full control over their data.

With the low code revolution now well underway, business leaders are starting to consider its impact on regulatory compliance, privacy, and security. However, vendor lock-in and a general lack of control over where their data resides remain key concerns, especially given that most low code development platforms (LCDPs) are either partially or fully closed source.

Addressing these challenges is a top priority as organizations store ever-greater quantities of sensitive data in the cloud in increasingly disparate environments. That’s why there must be a standardized and universal way for organizations to locate, access, and control their data, without being beholden to their technology vendors.

On the other hand, low code presents the promise of reduced costs and faster development cycles. At the same time, in a closed source environment, the vendor has the final say in how your data is stored, accessed, and transmitted, making it impossible to achieve true digital sovereignty.

This conundrum is exactly what makes low code development a natural fit for the open-source model. Organizations can enjoy the benefits of low code while preserving digital sovereignty and, in doing so, maintain complete control over its availability and the application of universal privacy, security, and compliance policies.

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4 reasons why your business need an open-source support contract

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The benefits of having a support contract for open-source software go beyond fixing issues. It also provides strategic support for your digital transformation.

Nine out of ten the world’s businesses now use open-source software. However, when people think about the open-source licensing model, the first thing that typically comes to mind is that it means free software. In reality, the benefits of open-source go far beyond that. These include a complete lack of vendor lock-in, community-driven support and maintenance, and end users having a stake in the direction of the software’s continued development.

When combined with the low-code approach to software development, open-source becomes the foundation of data democratization and technological innovation. The ultimate goal is for everyone in an organization to have equitable and timely access to the data they need to carry out their day-to-day roles, while giving business leaders the means to control and govern their digital assets in full.

It would be naïve and wholly misleading to claim that all these benefits can be realized without spending a single cent. While reduced costs are an undisputable benefit of the open-source model, getting the most out of it requires a certain degree of expertise and people power. After all, all software needs maintenance, and every solution must be tailored to the unique needs of individual businesses. That includes low-code development platforms (LCDPs).

Taking out a support contract for open-source software might not be necessary for everyone, but in this article, we’ll explore some compelling use cases to help you make a more informed decision.

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3 ways standardization enhances low-code and open-source security

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In simplifying software development, low code can also help reduce cybersecurity complexity, thanks to enhanced standardization and integration.

Over the past couple of decades, the technical footprint of many enterprises has become very complex and difficult to maintain. As business leaders struggle to keep up with the constantly evolving customer demands and all the ancillary challenges that come with it, that complexity is only likely to increase. This has also made it harder to maintain accountability for managing risk. In other words, enterprises are becoming too technically complex to secure.

As enterprises grapple with a rapidly expanding data footprint, with data coming from myriad different sources, the need for standardization and simplified management becomes clearer. Add the unprecedented rise of remote work and the internet of things (IoT) into the mix, and that need is even greater. Organizations are now using an average of software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps, presenting a 14-fold increase over just six years.

Naturally, achieving a sufficient degree of information security becomes exponentially harder the larger and more diverse the software stack and data footprint. While many cloud vendors are now embracing open-source standardization to reduce complexity, problems like vendor lock-in and a general lack of digital sovereignty persist. This results in reduced control which, in turn, can lead to compromised security and a lack of compliance with industry standards.

For established enterprises, the challenge is even greater. Even if they have a robust digital transformation strategy in place, most are still grappling with legacy technology which, in turn, means data sources that are difficult to adapt for modern, cloud-based apps and architectures. This often results in enterprises not knowing exactly where all their data physically resides or which controls are in place to protect it. After all, you can’t protect what you don’t know about.

By embracing a combination of low-code software development and open-source licensing, enterprises can democratize development and achieve greater control over their data assets. Low-code simplifies and standardizes the creation of business apps, while the open-source model helps maintain digital sovereignty and control. With the right strategy and support, this powerful combination can greatly enhance an enterprise’s security posture. In this article, we’ll find out exactly how.

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How to choose a rapid application development platform

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A rapid application development (RAD) platform should support visual software development, easy maintenance, and facilitate seamless team collaboration.

There are two main factors that drive any successful digital transformation: adaptability and speed. Most organizations need custom software to tackle the need for adaptability since off-the-shelf software is rarely likely to address the unique needs of individual enterprises. At the same time, software development is, traditionally, a slow and cumbersome process, where projects can take months or even years to complete, hence the need for a faster solution.

The need for speed goes hand-in-hand with the need for adaptability in an era of rapid change, where technology is constantly evolving and the demands of employees and customers are evolving with them. These factors combine to make rapid application development, or RAD a necessity in today’s enterprises. In this article, we will explain what RAD is (and what it isn’t) and how to choose the right platform for your organization’s needs.

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How iPaaS bridges the gap between low-code and professional development

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How integration platform as a service (iPaaS) offers a comprehensive and standardized way to develop and integrate business-critical applications.

Every business technology system consists of multiple subsystems working together to form a cohesive environment that can handle mission-critical operations and workflows at the speed and agility demanded by today’s market. Running a business also demands the collaboration of people and systems from across a wide range of operations, such as sales, marketing, and customer support. Each of these departments uses different apps and systems, which all need to work together to achieve smooth operations. If they do not, each department will operate in a silo, to the detriment of customer and employee experience alike.

Among the most pervasive challenges facing today’s enterprises is the need to integrate new apps and functions into increasingly complex and disparate technology environments. Further adding to this overarching challenge is the fact that developing and integrating new software is often a lengthy process fraught with myriad difficulties of its own. These include addressing the demands of information governance, security, privacy, and availability, to name a few. This is why organizations need integration platforms to build more efficient and scalable technology systems that can easily adapt to ever-changing business needs.

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Why low-code is the perfect learning tool for software developers

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While low-code development is known for its drag-and-drop simplicity, the ability to view and edit the underlying code also makes it the perfect learning tool.

Most professional software developers agree that it takes several months just to get familiar with the basics of coding, and that assumes having a high level of general technical knowledge to begin with. Given the rapid pace of advancement in the software development space, skills in problem-solving, attention to detail, coding concepts, and the ability to adapt to constantly evolving technologies are also vital. These factors partly explain why there is a growing skills gap in software development.

Fortunately, low-code software development presents something of a shortcut, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a valuable learning tool in its own right. What low-code does do is remove many of the more repetitive elements of software development by allowing professional and citizen developers alike to leverage the full potential of reusable components. Moreover, since low-code removes the need to code in such cases, it allows non-developers to quickly deploy standard business logic, regardless of their level of programming expertise.

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How low code helps software developers embrace rapid change

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Low-code software development has proven instrumental in facilitating innovation at scale in today’s constantly evolving and unpredictable business environment.

Until the widespread adoption of modern software systems, most routine business processes remained largely unchanged and, indeed, unchangeable over short timespans. In those times, innovations often took many years to enter the mainstream, and organizations could afford to rely largely on traditional processes and monolithic technology architectures.

Today, however, change is the only constant in the business world, which faces unprecedented disruption as it tries to tackle rising instability and unpredictability across global supply chains and constantly evolving customer demands.

In light of these growing uncertainties, business leaders face enormous pressure to adapt with the times in order to stay relevant. Continuous improvement is essential for keeping customers happy, employees motivated, and for satisfying the need for operational resilience. Thus, the ability to accommodate rapid change has become a universal business imperative.

More than ever, these factors rely on software. A few years ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella claimed that every company is a software company. Technology is increasingly embedded in everything we do, both at home and in the workplace. Back-office teams have become reliant on tailor-made customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to handle increasingly vast amounts of digital information at scale. Customers expect a responsive service and a persistent presence from the companies they do business with. Furthermore, these demands change and evolve all the time, thus necessitating an agile approach to software development and maintenance.

It is for these reasons that low-code software development has been gaining more and more ground over the years. Read more

7 ways low-code solutions accelerate digital transformation

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By making software development less burdensome on resources, low-code contributes to the acceleration of digital transformation and business-wide innovation.

It is often said that every company is a software company. Computers play a key role in almost everything we do. They are becoming embedded in everything from the cars we drive to the homes and cities we live in.

For organizations, computers and software have become critical for handling everything from customer relationship management to supply chain management. At virtually every customer touchpoint, there are digital interactions that leave a trail of data, from which they can unlock valuable insights, provided they have the right software solutions.

Digital transformation is the driving force behind these innovations. It is the process we use to create new business processes and customer and employee experiences or improve existing ones. It is the reimagining of business in the digital age, and software naturally plays a central role in that process. This is why the pressure is constantly growing on organizations to ease the burden of software development and, in turn, accelerate digital transformation.

Organizations that fail to embrace digital transformation face a very real and growing risk of losing their competitive positions and becoming irrelevant in today’s fast-changing world. One of the main causes of such failure is the difficulty in overcoming the inherent complexities of software development and the lengthy project lifecycles that come with it.

To overcome the challenges, organizations must be able to develop and integrate new tools and capabilities quickly, scale their applications in the cloud, automate routine workflows, and continuously modernize customer experiences.

To accomplish these tasks, software teams need a way to quickly deliver applications and iteratively improve them based on user feedback. Traditional software development is wholly unable to keep up with the need for speed and scale, which is why organizations need low-code software development to accelerate digital transformation.

Here are some reasons why low-code matters in digital transformation:

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Low code versus no code, and what it means to enterprise software developers

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Low code and no code are frequently lumped together, despite taking significantly different approaches. Here is what the debate means to enterprise developers.

The software industry is currently facing a massive wave of transformation driven by growing demand, evolving customer expectations, and fierce global competition. This has left enterprise software teams struggling to keep up with the constant pressure to innovate rapidly and keep widening skills gaps in check.

Every enterprise needs software, and off-the-shelf solutions can only go so far when it comes to meeting their unique requirements. However, while there is often a clear need to develop bespoke solutions, doing so often comes at a significant expense, especially when factoring in the ongoing costs of software maintenance.

Many of these challenges come down to the fact that traditional software development is costly and time-consuming and requires specialized skills that are in short supply and huge demand. This is why the case for no-code and low-code application development is growing all the time. According to Gartner, two-thirds of application development activity will be low code by 2024.

In this article, we will look at what that means for enterprise software teams.

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