THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS SOFTWARE Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technology offers numerous potential advantages to business by enabling users to create new business applications quickly, without the hassle and investment of setting up IT infrastructure. PaaS accomplishes this by delivering a complete software development, application server and database stack in the cloud. PaaS adoption is growing as businesses seize on it as a way to fasttrack application projects. PaaS platforms can introduce challenges, though, when it comes to sophisticated data integration and deployment options, the very features that businesses need if they want to use cloud computing to differentiate and compete. Progress Pacific PaaS, which uniquely combines application development and data integration, brings PaaS into the realm of serious business software. Pacific combines the speed and agility of PaaS with the flexibility, rich data connectivity, and rules management that businesses need to be competitive with their applications.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction............................................... 1 What Businesses Really Need from Applications......................... 2 The PaaS Solution............................................ 3 The Pacific Approach.......................................... 3 What is Progress Pacific......................................4 The Problem Pacific Solves.................................... 6 Pacific for ISVs............................................6 OpenEdge Integration........................................ 6 Conclusion................................................7 It s All About Choice........................................... 7 About the Author............................................ 8
1 INTRODUCTION Business users are disappointed with corporate software. They want more applications than overwhelmed developers can deliver. And it takes too long to build applications that address changing business initiatives, as well as the heightened expectations of consumers. Modern users demand an experience that is both intuitive and enjoyable. Business today is hyper-competitive and globalized. As dependence on technology grows, demand for applications is increasing. Technology will separate those who make it and those who won t. Successful organizations leverage technology as a competitive differentiator. But traditional development methods are cumbersome, and managing the infrastructure is time-consuming and costly. Over-dependency on professional developers and unwieldy tools slow down productivity. Cloud computing potentially changes this paradigm. Cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) enables users to create intuitive web and mobile business applications quickly by delivering a complete software development, application server, and database stack in the cloud. There s no investment of time and resources in setting up the underlying infrastructure. In most cases, the PaaS platform facilitates the creation of easy-to-use and easy-to-learn applications. There s a lot to like about PaaS for business. Indeed, PaaS adoption is growing as businesses seize on it as a way to fast-track application projects. But organizations are still challenged by the demand for applications and the overwhelming amount of data that must be capitalized on to propel the business forward (see Figure 1). When evaluating a PaaS, businesses should look for a solution that naturally integrates both applications and information, no matter what the source of that data. Demands of Modern Business Applications Rapid to Build - Businesses must deliver functionality fast Made to Share - People must collaborate with access to data they trust Flexible to Move - Organizations must leverage technology to create change Figure 1 As businesses demand more applications to capture insight from high data volumes, IT department struggle to keep pace. Business is demanding more IT can t keep pace Progress Pacific is a truly comprehensive new PaaS, which merges rapid application development with sophisticated data integration, bringing PaaS into the realm of serious business software. Pacific combines the speed and agility of PaaS with the flexibility and rich data connectivity that businesses need to be competitive with their applications.
2 WHAT BUSINESSES REALLY NEED FROM APPLICATIONS What do business managers truly expect from their applications? Having provided enterprise software to hundreds of businesses over the last thirty years, Progress is seeing a shift in expectations and requirements as market cycles accelerate. While businesses have always had to be agile and dynamic in response to change, the last few years have seen a dramatic increase in a demand for speed in software development. Figure 2 Technology trends that have arisen to meet business demand in the past few years. Application Development Agile/Componentbased development IT Operations Virtualization / DevOps Data and Analytics Big data / Analytics everywhere There are many reasons for this, including the mobile revolution, which introduces novel ways for consumers to connect with familiar brands at an extremely rapid pace. Customers expect new, interactive experiences, and they want them tailored to use cases that may not have even existed a year or two ago. For example, an application for sales engineers may need to be deployed in the cloud and access Salesforce in a public cloud, while connecting to data from an on-premise legacy application. In response, corporations are developing mobile apps and new interactive interfaces on a grand scale. A 2013 survey revealed a 43 percent increase in developers creating apps for business, and 63 percent of developers reporting either increased or greatly increased demand for enterprise apps since the beginning of the year. 1 Companies of all sizes desire to act like lean startups, rolling out quickly prototyped applications, getting feedback, and then pushing updated editions out within weeks. This phenomenon is more active at the exterior edges of a business, where it interacts with customers, partners and suppliers. The core business applications are also subject to frequent changes, but the pace can be a little more orderly. In contrast, the business professionals tasked with winning constant races to differentiate and compete have unique needs: They need simplicity in application development. They don t want to know or pay for deep technical skills. They need to connect to critical data held in a wide assortment of databases and repositories. They need to see models of applications before they are built. They want to show results right away and they need to do it all without a long, expensive IT project. 63% of developers report increased demand for enterprise applications Technavio Global PaaS Market 2012-2016 1 Technavio, Global Platform-as-a-Service Market 2012-2016
3 THE PAAS SOLUTION Cloud computing offers the basis for a speedy software development solution. With its ability to make infrastructure available on demand, as a service, the cloud cuts out some of the potentially slow and costly steps required to get software up and running. The introduction of PaaS, which can accelerate the creation of new software, takes the cloud even further. PaaS makes a complete software platform including infrastructure, application servers, development tools, databases, and storage available over the Internet. It s one of many as a service revolutions arising from the IT field s broader move to cloud computing. While Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS) makes the foundation of cloud computing available to those who know how to build their own platforms, PaaS makes it easy to assemble, deploy and manage applications in the cloud. Typically, PaaS allows selfservice and self-provisioning of resources to adapt to workload changes. Through a browser, a user can switch on a fully-configured cloud platform without having to worry about standing up hardware or installing software. PaaS scales elastically. Whatever platform resources are needed, there s no practical limit to what can be delivered on demand. PaaS confers several business and IT management benefits. Though it s not a magic cure-all, PaaS enables the kind of lightning-fast application development that businesses need today. It can be a huge source of advantage for certain types of in-house corporate projects and ISV (Independent Software Vendor) commercial products. Organizations can write their own software with PaaS but delegate infrastructure and platform management to specialists while concentrating on their core competency of developing applications. PaaS can facilitate cuts in IT overhead and capital expense by eliminating the conventional processes of acquiring and installing physical hardware, establishing or renting data center facilities, setting up servers, configuring, patching, maintaining, and so on. For early-stage companies, being able to operate on a lean basis can be an essential element of business viability. A few factors can reduce the beneficial impact of PaaS, however. Some PaaS solutions create platform dependencies that cause rigidity and unplanned licensing costs when an application scales. Others require deep knowledge of programming languages, which can slow down development cycles and necessitate the hiring of high-level programmers. Data connectivity also looms as a challenge in many PaaS scenarios. Enterprise applications need robust, flexible and fast connections to numerous sources of data both in the cloud and behind the firewall, or even multiple firewalls in some cases. These limitations sometimes restrict PaaS to a corner of IT reserved for small, non-critical projects: not quite ready for true enterprise-grade work. THE PACIFIC APPROACH Progress Pacific is a PaaS solution that is designed to deliver the full enterprise capabilities needed for business applications, while overcoming some of the challenges inherent in current PaaS alternatives. Pacific is envisioned as a PaaS solution that powers the rapid creation and deployment of powerful business applications that are driven by data and unlimited by device or cloud. That vision is being fulfilled today. PaaS scales elastically. Whatever platform resources are needed, there s no practical limit to what can be delivered on demand.
4 WHAT IS PROGRESS PACIFIC? Progress Pacific is designed for creating serious business applications. Pacific enables rapid creation of business applications that require little or no actual coding. Pacific powers software development for the entire business. Citizen developers can conceive and implement sophisticated business applications in the cloud without the help of highly specialized developer skills. Built on the model-driven approach to PaaS, Pacific lets users create functioning business applications with drag and drop tools and preset templates. For IT departments, Pacific is the platform for data-driven applications. Developers can quickly assemble, deploy, and manage applications. Mobile and web applications are delivered significantly faster to fuel business growth and innovation. For more advanced customizations, developers can write code in JavaScript. Pacific app dev technology then automatically generates the end-user interface. Easily MANAGE your users & app Quickly ASSEMBLE apps that leverage your data Figure 3 A reference architecture model for Progress Pacific. DEPLOY your apps on any device or cloud INTEGRATE all your data Pacific Cloud Services Community & Collaboration Services Architecture Services Governance Services FLEXIBLE RUN-TIME INFRASTRUCTURE public private on-prem Figure 3 shows the application development architecture for Pacific. At the heart of the offering are model-driven development tools, multiple deployment options, and API management capability that enable Pacific to connect to virtually any third party platform. On the client side, Pacific supports numerous operating systems and form factors. Extensive integration includes both on-premise and cloud data sources and applications, including the Progress OpenEdge platform. Pacific also includes data integration and business rule options. This multi-functional architecture results in applications that have extensive data connectivity and sophisticated business process modeling and rules. Pacific s data integration is provided by Progress DataDirect, which is widely viewed as the industry s best data connectivity solution. This mature technology links apps built in Pacific to data inside and outside
5 the organization s firewall. DataDirect uses fast, efficient wire protocol. There is no need to keep up with multiple, ever-changing APIs; Pacific allows you to access a multitude of data sources through a single SQL-based interface. Progress maintains the driver so that connectivity is constant and not dependent on updating drivers one at a time. This capability allows Pacific-based apps to interact with data sources and BI tools on the same robust basis as enterprise applications. Pacific allows organizations to leverage business rules by providing integration with Progress Corticon, a Business Rules Management System (BRMS) that automates business decisions. It separates decisions from processes, a feature that allows Pacific users to create or reuse business rules as well as create, improve, collaborate on and maintain decision logic. Both its data connectivity and business rules capabilities are distinctive and differentiating for users of Pacific. Open deployment is a foundation of the Pacific vision. Pacific can be deployed on a public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid. Figure 4 details those potential configurations. Being able to select who manages the infrastructure can be a big advantage for organizations with data governance or compliance policies that prohibit the use of public cloud but could benefit from the rapidity and flexibility of a cloud-based application. ON-PREMISE FIREWALL PUBLIC CLOUD Figure 4 Potential deployment scenarios for Progress Pacific customers. 1PUBLIC CLOUD On-Premise Data Source Progress Pacific Other SaaS Apps or Cloud Data Sources 2PRIVATE CLOUD On-Premise Data Source Progress Pacific Other SaaS Apps or Cloud Data Sources 3HYBRID CLOUD Progress Pacific for Production Progress Pacific for Develop/Test Other SaaS Apps or Cloud Data Sources
6 THE PROBLEMS PACIFIC SOLVES Pacific offers a new application development choice for IT and LOB managers who need to get applications into operation quickly. Pacific essentially balances the efficient, somewhat constrained world of preset, model-based PaaS with the expansive enterprise software environment. It makes possible the rapid realization of serious business applications with rich data connectivity and robust business rules, but without requiring the level of investment or time needed for a conventional enterprise application. Consider the following scenarios: A development team that is struggling to keep up with a mounting backlog of application requests from the business. The company is calling for rich applications that require integration across a variety of critical back-end data sources and applications and they need new functionality immediately. Using Pacific, the development team can quickly model, build and deploy new applications using a model-driven approach. An LOB manager with a specific operational need for an application but a limited IT budget. This application will require accessing data from multiple sources, such as SQL, Microsoft Access, and Salesforce.com. Pacific allows a citizen or GUI-type developer to quickly create, evolve and customize an application that integrates data from multiple data sources without coding. Critical business applications originally created using tools like Microsoft Access, Excel or other 4GL tool that have become difficult to manage and maintain. Pacific can be used as a platform for technical business users to build apps or as a starting point for apps that can be augmented by the development organization. Pacific accelerates the process by providing application templates and the ability to import existing applications as a starting point. A business application was originally created in Force.com. The business owners want to broaden its distribution to regions that have potential data regulatory constraints that preclude using a public, US-based PaaS. Pacific makes it possible to export the application from Force.com and deploy it in Pacific private cloud configurations in multiple geographies so as to meet data privacy standards. PACIFIC FOR ISVS Pacific provides ISVs the ease-of-use to quickly create new SaaS business applications. The multi-tenant platform offers ISVs the freedom to choose their hosting environments. Pacific includes many built-in services for ISVs, including tenant management, application directories, application management, end user and role management, and so on. ISVs can build applications with complex business rules, easily leverage data from any source, and offload the infrastructure to Progress, a trusted vendor that has been in business for more than 30 years. All this gives ISVs a competitive edge in the SaaS market. OPENEDGE INTEGRATION Pacific allows Progress OpenEdge customers to leverage their existing OpenEdge assets. OpenEdge applications can be extended with web and mobile applications or additional functionality. Multiple architectures are supported Pacific running in a public or private cloud accessing the OpenEdge development environment. Figure 5 shows Pacific running on-premise connecting to OpenEdge. ENTERPRISE MOBILE APPLICATIONS Quickly create enterprise-class mobile applications with Progress Pacific: Model-driven approach speeds building new mobile applications Streamlines adding mobile capabilities to existing applications Creates optimal user experience Automatically generates server objects Includes business logic and data integration Simplifies support for multiple devices
7 With this architecture, an application developed in Pacific can have complete access to the data and functionality contained in applications that are running on OpenEdge. Built-in data integration also opens up the application to myriad third party data sources. PDSOE AppServer Mobile App Builder Open Edge RDBMS Browser based Mobile/Web Development & Management Workflow Data Modeling Dashboards Integration API Application Server JavaScript ISV Services Tenant Management Billing App Direction Application Management Force.com Management User & Role Management Figure 5 Reference architecture for OpenEdge-Pacific integration in a hybrid cloud deployment. Tenant Management CONCLUSION Progress Pacific lets citizen developers create their own business applications quickly and efficiently, but with the kind of power and reach that are needed for true operational impact. IT can deliver applications faster with lower costs and still create more advanced applications using JavaScript. Pacific delivers a level of cloud-based business application that surpasses what is currently on the market. Sophisticated rules functionality, multiple deployment options, template-based application development, and rich data connectivity all contribute to a powerful solution offering. Pacific empowers technical business users and developers to create the kind of sophisticated business applications that once required significant investments of time and resources. Now, these applications can be built quickly and on low budgets. Pacific is a major advance in cloud-computing for business. IT S ALL ABOUT CHOICE At Progress, we re providing the choices businesses need. Progress Pacific provides an intuitive, easy-to-use platform where the complexities of application development and data access are removed, enabling developers and businesses to simply focus on solving their market and business problems. For Progress OpenEdge customers, Progress Pacific can help you extend the business logic you ve invested in and take it forward into today s cloud-enabled, mobile-delivered environments. Pacific brings together all of the benefits you ve come to expect from Progress rock solid reliability, flexibility in rapid development, and stable, reliable connections to critical data all under one powerful platform. All delivered with an amazing user experience. For more information, visit /pacific.
8 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Troester is the Senior Director of Progress Pacific Product Management and Solution Marketing. Mark has extensive experience in bringing application development and data integration products to market. Mark previously led product marketing efforts at Sonatype, SAS and Progress DataDirect. Before moving into marketing, Mark worked as a developer and developer manager for start-ups and enterprises alike. PROGRESS SOFTWARE Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global software company that simplifies the development, deployment and management of business applications onpremise or in the cloud, on any platform or device, to any data source, with enhanced performance, minimal IT complexity and low total cost of ownership. WORLDWIDE HEADQUARTERS Progress Software Corporation, 14 Oak Park, Bedford, MA 01730 USA Tel: +1 781 280-4000 Fax: +1 781 280-4095 On the Web at: Find us on facebook.com/progresssw twitter.com/progresssw youtube.com/progresssw For regional international office locations and contact information, please go to /worldwide Progress, Corticon, DataDirect, OpenEdge and Pacific are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation or one of its affiliates or subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Any other marks contained herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Specifications subject to change without notice. 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. Rev. 06/14 140516-0122