Codeless Architecture, Speed, and the Art of the Possible
By Harvinder Bhatia and Raj Konduru
For many organizations, especially large incumbents, the inability to keep up with the demand for modern applications is a competitive disaster waiting to happen.
Enterprise infrastructures are always growing more complex—a complexity that has accelerated over the past decade. As a result, traditional code-based application-building actually takes more, not less, time today than it did in the 2000s. In recent years, many organizations have stood on the sidelines as more nimble competitors—often digital-first startups—leapfrogged them with modern customer experiences, automation of complex internal workflows, and more.
Incumbents found themselves in a tight spot. Even if cost were not an issue (and, of course, it always is), organizations couldn’t hire skilled talent fast enough to meet the demand of the business. There were simply not enough experienced, skilled engineers to keep up with the accelerating demand for applications, given their sprawling, disparate environments.
Low-code has lessened some of the burden. No-code solutions have gone even further, enabling citizen (non-technical) developers to build and deploy applications at speed.
Codeless is enabling our clients to build complex, innovative enterprise applications at the speed of business — without a single line of code.
Now, codeless architecture, the foundational development paradigm of Unqork, is going the next step. Codeless is enabling our clients to build complex, innovative enterprise applications at the speed of business — without a single line of code.
From Serverless to Codeless
To understand the emerging concept of codeless architecture, it’s helpful to compare it to a more familiar concept — serverless architecture. With serverless architecture, you can leverage the power of the cloud without any of the cost or complexity of purchasing and maintaining your own physical servers. Serverless architecture boils down all that complexity to a virtual dashboard.
Codeless architecture operates on the same principle. For those building and managing apps — whether experienced engineers or citizen developers — the code “disappears” and developers only have to care about configurations. Developers simply drag-and-drop modular components within an entirely visual environment.
With codeless architecture, changes to the underlying infrastructure — legacy applications and databases, third-party applications, microservices, and more — have no effect on the applications built codelessly. As a result, we tell our clients, they can “freeze-and-wrap” that infrastructure. In other words, they can use it to build modern experiences, without having to constantly update, replace and then laboriously integrate individual components. (Of course, components can change and evolve when and if required.)
…what excites us about codeless architecture is what it enables us to do for our clients. For example, they no longer have to spend months and months selecting tools, building bespoke integrations, or wrangling underlying legacy code just to get to a minimal viable product (MVP)
Either way, they don’t need to make any changes to the codeless apps themselves, just as serverless architecture means you never have to worry about changes to the servers of your cloud provider.
Speed-to-market without comprising governance
It is all cool stuff in theory, but what excites us about codeless architecture is what it enables us to do for our clients. For example, they no longer have to spend months and months selecting tools, building bespoke integrations, or wrangling underlying legacy code just to get to a minimal viable product (MVP). Codeless architecture dramatically increases the productivity of developers — and opens up application building to citizen developers in an unprecedented way.
This could sound a little scary to IT leaders. It shouldn’t. With codeless, citizen developers do their work in a staging environment, to ensure control before go-live. In addition, they never create new code that could lead to hidden problems, either right away or down the road. And they are only working with modular components, with security logging, audit trails, and other security and governance capabilities already baked in.
Of course, codeless architecture doesn’t mean that you don’t have to design or architect solutions. Still, you free up seasoned professionals to ensure all necessary software development life cycle (SDLC) controls are in place — and to focus on core products and other higher-level strategic work.
Codeless architecture dramatically increases the productivity of developers — and opens up application building to citizen developers in an unprecedented way.
CIOs like the control their team retains. Business people are happy because they can get products to market far faster. We are happy because we help our clients achieve measurable results. It really is a win-win-win.
The art of the possible
Our financial services clients are investing more and more in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. However, ESG is a moving target, with changing standards and enterprises operating in dozens, even hundreds, of jurisdictions. Off-the-shelf solutions may be rigid and lack the flexibility and nimbleness required to deliver evolving ESG requirements. KPMG sees an opportunity to leverage low-/no-code platforms as a way to accelerate the delivery of ESG solutions and enable rapid iterations.
With platforms like Unqork, that is no longer a problem. You don’t have to go in and change the backend before building or updating the front-end ESG solution. Now, you can be really nimble and flexible and adapt quickly to new regulator requirements. And you don’t have any stray lines of code to worry about with each change — or every time you update some underlying piece of infrastructure. Instead, the code is actually maintained as a part of a codeless platform like Unqork.
One of our clients really brought home the power of codeless architecture to explore the art of the possible. Before the organization made the move to codeless, every time a business unit wanted funding for an innovative new idea, they spent weeks or months presenting and meeting with decision-makers multiple times in order to convince them the idea was viable.
Now that the client is using Unqork’s codeless platform, they can quickly build a prototype in a few weeks and take that to decision-makers. In this way, prototypes can be taken to decision-makers right off the bat.
So not only does codeless accelerate development, but also the speed at which the business itself can grasp and act on innovative ideas. That unleashes organizations to truly explore the art of the possible.
Learn more about KPMG’s low-/no-code practice in general, as well as KPMG’s alliance with Unqork.
Check out CodelessArchitecture.org for more information, follow Codeless Architecture on Medium, sign-up for the newsletter, and follow developments of the open standard on GitHub.
About the authors
A partner at KPMG, Harvinder Bhatia has over 20 years of industry and consulting experience in delivering complex digital transformation programs for financial services clients. He currently leads the financial services low-code practice for KPMG in the U.S.
Also a partner at KPMG, Raj Konduru is a modern architecture lead with wide-ranging experience in building and leading large high-performing modern architecture and digital engineering practices. He partners with senior leaders at Fortune 500 firms to define, architect, and deliver end-to-end business solutions.
Some or all of the services described herein may not be permissible for KPMG audit clients and their affiliates or related entities.
This story originally appeared here.
