Abstract: Low code platform is the inevitable product of demand and technology development, from the development mode, development threshold, development efficiency, with the traditional development mode has a fundamental difference, is the industry has reached a consensus on the new technology direction.

Share this article from huawei cloud community the HDC. Cloud2021 | low code: is change the way the software development “, the original author: gray dalai.

Since 2016, low code has suddenly entered a phase of rapid development and the market capacity has been expanding. According to leading analysts and market agencies, the low code market will be worth $30-50 billion by 2025.

Foreign mainstream manufacturers have entered the game. Domestic low code development, heat than foreign higher. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 30 manufacturers promoting “low code” in the market, most of which have always been industry software manufacturers. In the process of serving customers, these manufacturers found that low code is a better way to solve the problems of industry customers, and transformed into low code platform providers.

Low-code platforms are a new trend that is changing the way software is developed

There are several reasons for the rapid growth of low-code platforms:

1. Rapid growth in demand, Gartner expects new application demand in 2021 to be five times greater than professional IT development capacity. In the context of this demand explosion, low code to solve the problem of insufficient capacity is the most appropriate solution at the moment. The rapid growth in demand stems from the following reasons:

2. The development of basic technologies, especially cloud native, DevOps and other technologies in the cloud era, has boosted the development of low-code platforms. The current mainstream low code platform is first a cloud platform with the following architecture:

Typical architecture of cloud low code platform

In this kind of cloud architecture, we can rely on the technical dividend of cloud native and DevOps to enhance the ability of elastic expansion, security and network connectivity of low-code platform, so that developers can focus more on the business itself and not pay too much attention to technology and architecture.

3. The development of new technologies (5G, AI, IoT, etc.) greatly increases the difficulty of application development, and the use of low code can lower the threshold of development. The home page of a low-code platform presets commonly used components and capabilities, allowing developers to quickly develop applications. However, it is impossible for a low-code platform to understand enough businesses and pre-set all the components needed by all walks of life. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a mechanism for asset precipitation, through the asset market, so that thousands of practitioners from all walks of life can contribute assets. The more assets there are, the more capable the low-code platform, and the lower the barrier to development.

Typical low-code platform assets

4. Mainstream manufacturers and capital drive. Mainstream vendors and capital are very sensitive to the smell of low-code platform products, in recent years, there have been a lot of m&a events:

Mainstream vendors and capital are not the root cause of low code development. But it is the involvement of mainstream manufacturers and capital that has given a powerful boost to the rapid growth of recent years.

Based on the above reasons, it can be seen that low code platform is the inevitable product of demand and technological development. It is fundamentally different from the traditional development mode in terms of development mode, development threshold and development efficiency, and it is a new technology direction that has been agreed by the industry.

Low code platform issues and challenges

Although low-code platforms are developing rapidly, some current problems and challenges for major platforms have not been well solved:

Low code or zero code? Low code and zero code are two different development modes provided by low code platforms. Currently, mainstream platforms rarely provide simple low code or zero code development modes, and basically both of the two development modes are included in them. However, low code and zero code vary widely in usage scenarios, developers, performance requirements, and so on, making it difficult for a low code platform to do both.

Low-code platforms face two major challenges:

First, it is difficult for a platform to meet the experience and capability requirements of both zero code and low code. Low code development requirements are simple enough to satisfy business people with no development experience; At the same time, it should be professional enough to allow professional developers to develop professional applications flexibly through the thinking of code and development. The compatibility of the two on the same platform presents a great challenge to the design of low-code platforms.

Secondly, the low code development mode, especially for the development of core business systems, will bring great challenges to the capabilities of the platform itself, including flexibility, security, reliability, operation and maintenance, etc. Low code platforms need to have enough technical expertise, enough practice and accumulation.

2. Low code platforms need to connect with other business systems. Mainstream low-code platforms either provide “connectors” or API calls to interact with other business systems.

Typical connectors for low code platforms

There are two major challenges to this connection:

First of all, there are many systems and protocols to be connected, such as the systems of professional manufacturers such as SAP or the micro services of RPC protocol. These systems have high difficulty and professional requirements. Manufacturers of low-code platforms cannot preset the connection of every business scenario into the platform, so they need to be able to build an ecosystem.

Second, there are other ways to access data besides connectivity. For example, to connect to an IoT device, the IoT device actively pushes data to the platform, which requires the platform to provide data access methods other than active connection. The complexity of data access methods and performance problems caused by massive data access are great challenges.

3. The development of new technologies, such as 5G, AI and IoT, brings new challenges to low-code platforms. Low code platform as the core business platform, or enterprise digital platform, need the support of new technology. For example, When AppSheet was acquired by Google, it offered AI capabilities such as voice assistant and RPA, making it much easier to develop these types of apps. However, for most of the low code platforms, the follow-up and support for new technologies is insufficient.

Low code development platform – Huawei Cloud application Rubik’s Cube AppCube

Huawei Cloud application Rubik’s Cube AppCube is a low-code platform for huawei cloud to be commercialized recently. Although this platform has only appeared in Huawei cloud for a short time, it has been developed for 5 years:

From 2015 to 2017, the company started research and development, and the product was born to solve the customization problem of telecom software. Telecom software is highly similar, but each operator will have customization requirements, low code platform is very good to solve this problem;

In 2018, the platform began to serve as the basic development platform for large-scale solutions such as smart parks. Industrial assets were deposited through the platform and served as the core carrier of solutions. After success, the platform was promoted in smart city, education and other solutions in the past two years.

In 2019, the low-code platform was applied to Huawei’s internal process and IT system, completely replacing the process engine of Country A in one month, and developing IT electronic flow;

In 2020, the Application of Rubik’s Cube AppCube was launched in huawei cloud public test;

In 2021, huawei Cloud was commercialized with rubik’s Cube AppCube.

In the process of development, the low-code platform has gone through a lot of polishing and become a mature platform:

  • It has become the core business development and operation platform of the smart park, which can support millions of data requests of large parks every day.

  • 3 days to develop Huawei internal process and IT electronic flow, supporting the use of 100,000 + employees;

  • Dozens of people in a project team of Sinosoft International developed the project based on Huawei cloud AppCube: the development efficiency increased by 70%, the project delivery efficiency increased by 40%, and the personnel investment decreased by 30%

Huawei Cloud application Rubik’s Cube aims to provide a better low-code platform:

  • When the low code development ability is mature, develop the zero-code development mode, make the zero-code and low code experience and ability compatibility, and serve the comprehensive developers and professional developers well;

  • IT provides connectors and data access capabilities, which can connect with complex peripheral systems, and can integrate IT and OT, which can be used to build core business systems.

  • Integrate Huawei’s new technologies and capabilities, support 5G message development, and connect huawei cloud’s AI and IoT capabilities to add new impetus to applications

Visit huawei cloud website to learn more, or apply for a free trial. Huawei AppCube will also communicate with you through booth, developer training camp and online CodeLabs at Huawei Developer Conference 2021(Cloud) held in Xili University Town, Shenzhen from April 24 to 26, 2021. Look forward to meeting you.

Appointment and attendance:

  • Login HDC. Cloud2021 website: developer.huaweicloud.com/HDC.Cloud20…

  • Choose “Conference Agenda” – “Sub-Forum” – “Application modernization” in turn to reserve “Southern University of Science and Technology & Huawei Cloud AppCube: Development of Application for Campus Declaration and approval”, “Huawei Cloud Low Code Development College Training Camp – Southern University of Science and Technology & Huawei Cloud AppCube Jointly produced” developer training camp

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