Harnessing App Development With ‘Low-Code’ Platforms
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One of the offshoots of the open source movement has been the gradual rise of "citizen application developers" operating on enterprise-grade "low-code" platforms. While the approach is seen as one way to meet the growing demand for enterprise applications such as data capture and mobile data access, a survey warns that the development approach brings with it a new set of integration and security concerns.
The survey released earlier this month by low-code and business process management vendor Appian found that low-code platforms are seen as necessary to keep business applications moving from development to deployment. However, more than two-thirds of those polled worry the emerging agile software development approach poses data integrity and security problems.
Among the concerns were that citizen developers would use the wrong financial or customer data for business applications. Those erroneous data sources could end up jeopardizing business operations, the survey warned. Meanwhile, 69 percent of respondents reported compromised data security by citizen developers, while more than half reported data integration issues.
Low-code platforms are defined as enabling faster delivery of business applications with a minimum of hand coding and little upfront investment in training and deployment.
Vendors such as Appian point to security and integration concerns in promoting their low-code platforms as a way of "bringing the citizen development movement under the governance of IT to ensure security, data integrity and operational efficiencies," according to Appian CEO Matt Calkins.
Another impetus for the low-code movement is the projected shortage of qualified application developers by 2020. Hence, enterprises are looking to fill the development gap with open-source technologies such as application containers and other agile development approaches to speed deployment of secure enterprise applications.
Market watchers are also bullish on the low-code approach. Gartner predicts that at least half of new enterprise applications will be developed on low-code platforms that would be used to ensure data governance while mitigating security risks.
Other vendors have noted growing interest in the low-code approach. According to Denver-based TrackVia, 29 percent of IT executives it recently polled are already using the agile software development framework while 43 percent are "interested."
The low-code framework also is seen as a way of leveraging so-called "shadow IT" that has created more headaches for embattled IT managers. Hence, three-quarters of those questioned in the Appian survey said low-code platforms could help leverage the ability of citizen developers while reducing the data security and integration burdens on their IT departments.
Appian meanwhile cited examples of banking customers using its low-code platform to roll out as many as 25 "Tier 1" enterprise applications in about 18 months.
Appian, Reston, Va., said it surveyed more than 500 CIOs, CTOs and other IT decision makers in November 2016.
