Composable Applications Explained: What They Are and Why They Matter

Composable Applications Explained: What They Are and Why They Matter

Composable applications are customized solutions created using modular services as the building blocks. Like how Lego blocks snap together to create different structures, composable applications use small, interchangeable components to create applications with specific functionalities.

The modular nature of Lego blocks allows us to build a castle, a spaceship, or my favorite Porsche. Like Lego blocks, composable applications help us build websites, mobile apps, or software systems. Furthermore, just as you can swap out different Lego blocks to change the design of your structure, you can swap out various composable applications to change the functionality of your software system. This approach makes composable applications highly flexible and customizable to meet the specific needs of users or organizations.

So, what are the benefits of composable applications?

Composable applications allow organizations to assemble pre-existing software components quickly and easily. Instead of building everything from the ground up, they help reduce development time and be nimbler to changing business needs. Key benefits include:

Flexibility and scalability: Composable applications can be modified, updated, and expanded to meet changing business requirements. New functionality can be added or removed without affecting the overall system.
Faster time-to-market: Composable applications can speed up the development process, as developers can focus on building and testing smaller, independent services instead of large, monolithic applications.
Reduced costs: Composable applications reduce costs by reusing existing services or components instead of building everything from scratch. This results in lower overall IT expenses.
Improved reliability: Composable applications are resilient and fault tolerant. Individual services can be independently tested and deployed; if one service fails, it does not affect the entire application.
Better integration: Composable applications can integrate more easily with other systems and applications, as each service offers a well-defined API.

As great as composable applications are, there are some caveats.

Composable applications require careful planning, design, development, and management to realize promised benefits.
Composable applications need a software architecture approach that involves breaking down an application into smaller, independent building blocks or services. We should be able to easily combine and orchestrate these services to create complex workflows or processes.
Composable applications can be complex to design, develop, and manage, as they involve multiple services and components that must work together seamlessly. Ensuring that each service can interact with other services can be challenging.
Composable applications can pose governance and security challenges. Different teams may develop and manage individual services, and security risks may surface at the integration points between services.
Composable applications require a comprehensive testing and quality assurance process, as each service requires testing in conjunction with other services. This process can be time-consuming.
Composable applications require a robust monitoring and troubleshooting strategy. Identifying and resolving issues quickly and efficiently can be challenging if you are new to this paradigm.
Composable applications may need to integrate with legacy systems, which can pose challenges due to differences in technology, architecture, and data formats.

From a data management standpoint, a platform approach offers several advantages to organizations building composable applications. A unified platform with a broad range of data management capabilities built as microservices can be a good approach. These services include data integration, API integration, data quality, master data management, governance, workflow, data security, and more. These services should be delivered in a cloud-native architecture and must scale. Additionally, a modern approach focusing on user-friendly drag-and-drop tools, pre-built connectors, and templates will simplify the development and management of composable applications.

What are your thoughts? I would love to hear. Contact me on Twitter at @MDMGeek or leave a comment here.

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