Anatomy of Low-Code SaaS Development Platform
The advantages of using the low-code platform (trillo.io) for developing SaaS applications include:
- Write up to 90% less code than through conventional workflows.
- Flexible development of applications that are easy to change.
- Higher quality code with fewer opportunities to introduce bugs.
How Low-Code Works
Low Code platform uses pre-built services for common aspects such as:
- Database exposure via RESTful APIs.
- Application logic provided as scripts.
- Standard compliant security model.
- API gateway for integration of services.
- Component-ized UI, leveraging HTML / CSS.
- Easily built UI pages/scenarios by dropping components in slots.
The platform customizes pre-built services using model-driven declarations. These services permanently acquire the personality of custom services without writing any code.
Data Model
Platform users declare data models using UI/JSON by specifying the following:
- Definition of classes, attributes, constraints.
- Association among classes.
- Attributes and rules for access control.
After selecting a data source (e.g., SQL or NoSQL database), the platform can introspect the database to infer any data models nested within. A pre-existing service does all the magic under-the-hood to accomplish the following:
- Implements model in the DB.
- Exposes databases via RESTful APIs.
- Implements multi-tenancy.
- Updates schema as the model changes.
- Validates security.
Serverless Functions
The platform allows adding server-side business logic as functions to augment
existing services. The user scripts the logic as modular functions and uploads to the platform’s FaaS (Function-as-a-Service).
The platform’s FaaS service hosts all user functions and provides the sandbox to run the functions. The platform exposes these function as a Restful service.
The platform further collects logs for each run of the functions and add to a
common stream. It also validates security while functions are executed in a multi-tenant environment.
Security Model
The platform provides security out of the box leveraging the followings:
- Single sign on using external identity provider.
- OpenID Connect.
- SAML
Using the above, it bundles all following features:
- It manages OAuth 2.0 tokens, including those issued by external services.
- RBAC / ABAC support.
- Real-time entitlement management.
- Audit trail, reports, alerts.
Secure API Gateway
The platform bundles an API gateway for the following purposes:
- Secure API access for external services.
- Secure API access among internal services.
It enforces enterprise security model as:
- Asserts user and device identity
- Validates user roles and their entitlements.
It facilitates service lookup by name and supports other features like:
- API call throttling, metering.
- API mapping using expressions or templates and scripts.
Custom Microservices
The platform provides seamless integration to add custom microservices. Custom microservices can be mixed with pre-existing services easily.
The user simply builds a microservice as container, and the platform pulls it to run in the existing cluster.
Easily Build Flexible UI
The platform provides a UI builder to
- Build components directly in HTML/CSS.
- Create pages and scenarios visually by simply dropping components into slots.
- Provides a runtime behavior of UI, out of the box, using prebuilt UI framework (inspired by Web Component).
- Add custom logic as JavaScript controllers.
Version Control
The user-designed low-code with all customized provisioning resides in the user’s own Git repository. The platform does not maintain and version user’s low-code and instead provides seamless integration to the GitHub.
Deployment
With a single click, the platform deploys final SaaS low-code to either default, AWS, GCP or private cloud environment. Using the Git branching, it facilitates deploying into multiple runtime environments such as development, qa, stage and production.
Architecture
More Info
You can find more info about Trillo on the web at:
