9 Essentials for

Extraordinary Apps

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 2

Capitalize on IT commoditization

Figure out where you stand on the IT

“commoditization curve.”

Save money where you can, but don’t

outsource what makes you different or

gives you a competitive advantage.

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 3

Get IT out of the way

With a high-productivity PaaS solution,

you empower your entire organization

to take things into their own hands.

Move away from the practice of

opening work requests and free IT to

spend their time on higher-value work.

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 4

Don’t think public cloud first—create the right cloud

Public clouds like Amazon Web

Services, Google and Salesforce

aren’t your only options.

It is possible to set up your own servers

to work as a private cloud or to work in

conjunction with the public cloud with a

hybrid approach. Choose what is best for

your organization’s workflow.

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 5

Don’t be mobile-first—think user-first

Don’t miss the forest for the trees!

Mobile business apps are supposed to

make life easier for the user, offering

the same kind of rich experience as a

consumer app.

Always keep the user experience front

and center in your design and

architecture approach.

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 6

Integrate your mobile development efforts

Focus on API-first, DevOps approaches

to application development. Break

down the walls between your dev silos

and reuse resources. No need to code

the same thing twice!

An integrated development process

leads to a more consistent cross-

platform user experience and faster

time-to-market.

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 7

Don’t separate data and development

Most applications require data to be

pulled from a myriad of sources,

including the on-premise network, the

cloud or both.

Consider from the outset how you will

need to access a wide variety of data

types and sources across your app dev

infrastructure—securely and without

opening holes in the firewall.

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 8

Think about your entire software supply chain

Don’t get stuck just thinking about the

development stage of the application

process. Always keep in mind where

your applications fit within the software

supply chain.

Using a holistic approach from the start

lets you manage the entire application

lifecycle gives you an efficient, easier

way to manage and enhance your

applications in the future.

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 9

Determine your “XaaS” strategy

Consider your IaaS, SaaS and PaaS

options carefully so that you use the

best “as a service” approach to meet

the technical, business and financial

needs of your organization.

A PaaS cloud-based development

solution may be the best route to help

your organization leverage applications

for competitive differentiation. IaaS

SaaS

PaaS

© 2014 Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 10

Pick the right PaaS

Not all PaaS solutions are created equal.

Some deploy and manage completed

applications. Some focus on accelerating

the application development stage with

high-productivity solutions. Others use

high-control environments for a traditional

development approach.

Decide which one(s) will work best based

on your organization’s objectives.

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