Exploring Composable Application Experiences with Entando
In today’s fast changing world, businesses need to create innovative application experiences that can adapt quickly to evolving market demands. According to Gartner, a leading technology research and consulting company, the future of application experiences lies in leveraging composable business capabilities–software components that represent and perform a business capability. An Application Composition Platform (ACP) with a catalog of reusable components will be essential in facilitating this paradigm shift. To learn more about why an Application Composition Platform is crucial for your business, you can read the following White Paper.
The Entando ACP aligns perfectly with this shift, providing a comprehensive set of tools including the Hub, App Builder, Component Manager and others. Entando provides the platform for enterprises to embrace composable architecture and build agile application experiences.
An ACP should provide a composable environment that can build fully modular applications. In the past, large web or enterprise applications were built using monolithic architecture, in one large codebase. However, with the separation of business logic from the frontend, the backend evolved into a service layer that became more flexible and manageable, with microservices, containers, and cloud-based infrastructures. Today, the frontend is evolving similarly with micro frontends, using popular technologies like React, Angular and Vue.
Breaking down the software into smaller manageable parts optimizes the lifecycle of complex applications, and the Entando ACP can play a vital role in this composable journey, streamlining application management across distributed teams at every stage.
Entando takes a unique approach to modularity and composability by encapsulating software components like microservices and micro frontends into packages called Bundles. An Entando Bundle can be a single function component or an intricate packaged business capability (PBC), but following the precepts of modularity, they are self-contained, interoperable, and scalable. The Platform offers the Entando Hub, a catalog management system to organize and manage reusable Bundles. By integrating Gartner's conception of composable business capabilities directly into the Platform, providing a way to manage them, Entando is defining how composability can work.
There are four stages to the composable journey on Entando - Create, Curate, Compose, and Consume. This dynamic workflow is guided by an enterprise architect who defines business domains and maps the capabilities.
The process empowers developers to create and deploy new components in support of the capabilities. These components and Bundles are managed by curators in a central repository, to ensure quality and reusability while composers assemble them into an application. Then, consumers like business users configure and employ the application, providing invaluable feedback to creators and composers. Whether you're an IT or business professional, you can leverage low-code composition tools like the App Builder UI to create, assemble, and configure components and cutting-edge applications on Entando.
The ACP provides a comprehensive set of tools and features. In our latest release, v7.2, we’ve enhanced core components like the Entando Kubernetes Operator and Identity Management System, ensuring a robust foundation. The Component Generator supports pro-code developers by integrating the Bundle and popular tools such as JHipster, Skeleton, and PBC templates. The Hub centralizes and integrates Bundles while the Entando Platform Capabilities, or EPCs, provide a way to extend the Platform’s functionality. These features are implemented in the App Builder, a low-code composition UI that allows users to connect to hubs, retrieve Bundles, and use a drag-and-drop tool to build application pages. There are many other features not described here like the Entando CLI, multitenancy, or the App Engine, which renders content and orchestrates interactions between runtime tools.
A notable advantage of doing composability with Entando is that the Platform is technology agnostic. With all the choices available today, developers can choose the software they apply throughout the development process, ensuring optimal productivity, project alignment, and fast learning curve.
You can also accelerate development, streamline lifecycle management, and lower runtime costs. The catalog of reusable components, independent and parallel development paths, and the iterative process work together to accelerate development. The capacity to isolate problems, the integration of CI/CD pipelines, and standardized governance streamline the application lifecycle. Finally, automating operational processes, scaling components independently, and isolating failures leads to resilience, simplified maintenance and lower runtime costs.
In conclusion, Entando’s comprehensive platform enables businesses to embrace composable architecture and create innovative application experiences. As the leading open-source, technology agnostic and pluggable platform, we reduce the complexity of developing on Kubernetes. We empower developers, curators, composers, and consumers to collaborate effectively throughout the development lifecycle, bringing together business and IT goals within a common framework. With its flexibility in technology choices, comprehensive toolset, and open-source nature, Entando offers a unique and powerful solution for organizations seeking to harness the full potential of composable development.
The Entando Platform is open source on GitHub under the LGPL v3 license. The terms of service for enterprises are flexible, as Entando offers enterprises options for annual subscriptions with a flat fee, no hidden charges at two support levels (Gold and Platinum). Subscriptions are based on the number of Entando App Engines used for web/mobile apps, websites or portals with renewals and multi-year bundles. Subscribers receive a commercial license along with maintenance and warranty services.
We provide channel support for system integrators and solution providers but other services may include training, development, testing, architectural review and upgrade analysis.
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