In modern conditions of a rapidly changing world, the automation of non-standard processes becomes very important. Systems that can flexibly automate “floating” rather than fixed processes, including those that depend on a specific set of conditions, are in demand. Modern IT systems should be easily transformable in accordance with the changing business environment and the needs of today.
The current trend of digital business transformation poses serious challenges to software developers. The simplicity and speed of development and deployment of applications for the end user comes first. The traditional approach to developing applications using general-purpose programming languages is laborious, requires highly skilled programmers and cannot provide an acceptable speed of obtaining the final solution. According to the StandishGroup study, only 40% of IT projects complete on time. According to the 4PM report, more than 70% of corporate IT projects fail.
Exceeding the budget for developing IT systems is the second big problem for the industry. Among the main reasons are difficulties in estimating the cost and underestimating the complexity of the project. Using traditional development technology, it is difficult to make accurate estimates. According to a McKinsey study, 45% of IT projects for enterprises had exceeded the planned budget.
Shortage of skilled developers is a steady trend in the software development industry over the past decade. To be competitive in the digital age, enterprises need to modernize existing IT solutions and create new ones, which requires more and more highly qualified engineers. At the same time, educational institutions can no longer fill the increasing demand.
When developing corporate software, different technologies and programming languages are used, therefore there are difficulties in integration. Traditional information systems are more difficult to maintain and make changes, which also increases the cost of their support and development.
Increasing penetration of artificial intelligence into all sectors of the economy imposes special requirements on business management systems. IT systems need to become more flexible and “smart” to be able to work in tandem with artificial intelligence.
The CRAFT platform is a cloud-based Web service that provides a virtual environment for developing professional business applications with complex logic and intensive data processing. The CRAFT platform in the technology stack resides between Low-Code / BPM systems and traditional software frameworks and provides the entire cycle of application development, execution and support.
- Low-Code platform allows you to create corporate business applications 8 to 20 times faster than the traditional way, due to the visual development and use of intelligent assistants based on AI technologies.
- Using the Low-Code platform allows you to reduce the cost of developing corporate software by 20–50% by simplifying the creation of applications (the developer can focus only on solving the applied task) and reduces the requirements for developer’s qualifications.
- The built-in programming language allows you to create complex enterprise-class applications.
- Open platform API and Java/C#/Go languages support make it easy to integrate with external systems.
CRAFT platform benefits:
- The platform is developed using the micro-service architecture and artificial intelligence technologies.
- Web interface of the platform and generated applications use Web sockets and BEM CSS technologies.
- The platform concept involves building applications from ready-made standard components (objects), whose properties and behavior are defined in the system metadata. Attribute object model can be extended by application developer.
- To implement the basic objects functionality, you do not require any programming. To extend the logic of objects’ behavior scenarios, it is possible to use a built-in problem-oriented and event-driven language with strong typing and pre-compilation.
- Deploying the system “on premises” on the customer’s server or in a public cloud (Amazon, Azure, Google) using Docker/Kubernetes technologies and supporting Continues Integration (CI) and Continues Delivery (CD) processes.