Entando Component Repository: How It Works

The Entando Component Repository (ECR) is a shared, internal repository that encourages code reuse across projects and can be used to support and standardize multiple Entando applications. With the ECR, you can catalog the different building blocks of an application or solution in a centralized hub, creating categorization, tagging meta information, and logging inventory. This allows those who are curating components, business capabilities, and solutions to ensure these application building blocks are ready to be composed into applications, defining prerequisites and updating capabilities with the latest versions, patches, or upgrades. Further, different instances of the ECR can serve different goals. For example, there is an open source hub of components that the Entando community can draw from and add to. Enterprises may also implement a proprietary hub full of the custom components they have created and want to share across their own enterprise. System integrators can leverage their own instance of the ECR to maintain and catalog components and solutions to be updated and deployed into numerous client applications, decreasing time to market and improving the overall quality of any one given solution.

With the ECR, systems integrators can create, update, or patch a business capability once, catalog and tag it with relevant meta information, and then pull it from their hub to integrate with clients’ applications whether they are creating a new application that requires that component or updating a current application with the latest version of the capability. Here are two ways this can help systems integrators complete projects in a streamlined manner and according to the client’s requirements.

Streamline Communication

One challenge systems integrators face when completing projects and updates is clear communication across a variety of stakeholders to ensure that the various aspects of a launch or update are prioritized and on schedule. Creating a carefully curated and organized hub can help to alleviate those concerns by enabling systems integrators to update capabilities and log which applications currently have deployed the most up-to-date versions. For example, not every client will want to implement the latest version of a capability at the same time, as not every update may be mission critical and can wait until other upgrades are being made. Nevertheless, when that time comes, the system integrator can check for the latest version of the necessary components and easily check requirements.

Faster Installs and Upgrades

Another way that an Application Composition Platform like Entando ACP can benefit systems integrators with respect to the ECR is that every component and business capability is fully modular. This avoids the frustration of needing to update two things that are functionally different but nevertheless wrapped up together in the application’s infrastructure. Because capabilities are developed as discrete units, and updated versions can be made to fit in the place of the previous iteration, deployment of these updates, patches, and upgrades is streamlined. This is also a benefit to systems integrators who are working on updating or adding functionality to applications that are either older or were originally built by someone else and use different tools or coding languages. Systems integrators are not locked in or limited to how the application was previously built and can use the tools that work best with their skills and the task at hand.

Build modular applications on Kubernetes with Entando ACP.

If you run containerized deployments, you understand the benefits of Kubernetes. You also understand how complicated it can be and how difficult it can be to gain developer adoption. It feels like there should be an easier way. That’s why we created an application composition platform that makes it easy to build enterprise applications on Kubernetes using modular components. Entando ACP is changing the way enterprises think about building their apps, sites, and portals in order to promote developer productivity in a Kubernetes environment. With Entando ACP, you can: - Bootstrap an application from a customized template. - Accelerate app development to update iteratively. - Simplify deployments by abstracting the complexity of Kubernetes. We integrate trusted open source technologies and extend their functionality to give you a cohesive and streamlined developer experience with easy-to-use patterns. From deploying on Kubernetes to creating modular backend and frontend architectures using your current technologies, Entando helps you at every layer of the stack. Entando is open source with available enterprise support and services. Begin developing on the platform today, and get a quote to see how our team can help your enterprise build better apps, sites, and portals––faster.