Web-based development for web-based applications

Web-based development environments can simplify the development process in many areas. This is because these new tools offer opportunities for decentralized and mobile working for internal and external employees.

The aim of the solutions currently available is to provide development resources quickly for a project, to scale internal and external teams without technical hurdles and at the same time to reduce the operating and maintenance costs of the IT environment.

Outsourcing development to the cloud

A web development environment is a complete software development environment provided by a cloud service provider. This includes development tools as well as test systems, prototypes or the source code repository. JavaScript is usually used as the technology.

No dedicated network connections between the cloud and the company's IT are required to use these development environments. This is possible thanks to JavaScript technology.

This is because JavaScript is executed locally in the web browser and is therefore similar to conventional solutions that have to be installed locally. With one exception: the development environment is maintained by the cloud provider and always kept up to date.

Internal employees can access existing internal IT systems as usual in order to test or distribute new applications. Technically, these employees continue to work locally and therefore only require Internet access.

External employees, on the other hand, are needed in many IT projects to contribute specialist knowledge that cannot be permanently located or built up within the company.

However, on-boarding these resources is time-consuming, both administratively and technically. In addition, it is often undesirable or difficult to integrate external employees into internal software development teams or to grant access rights to the internal IT environment.

Web development environments offer new solutions for this case, such as the automated creation of mock-ups of internal IT systems that are made available in a functional form in a cloud environment for development purposes.

The technology of web-based development allows internal teams to be easily scaled with additional external resources.

Specialist skills, such as the CSS knowledge required for user interface development, can therefore be flexibly added to a project team as required without first having to apply for or manage complex IT access rights. All that is needed is access to the software development environment.

Similarities between SAP and other solutions

All major manufacturers of individual software solutions now offer web-based development and test environments. The solutions have a lot in common and are all based on the same principle: web-based development for web-based applications!

Web development environments are primarily designed to provide websites, portals, hybrid and pure HTML5 apps. Available products include Microsoft WebMatrix, IBM BlueMix, SAP Web IDE, SAP Hana Workbench and the Google Chrome Dev Editor. So far, only the Hana Workbench addresses the area of native development.

The products share the following basic characteristics:

1. They are optimized for manufacturer specifics such as SAP Fiori or IBM BPM.
2. They all contain a vendor toolkit with ready-made code modules and templates.
3. All products use standardized interfaces, for example to the code repository GitHub or bug tracking tool Bugzilla.

In addition, the IT architecture and the development procedure - testing, development strategy, authorization concepts, etc. - are always identical. The combination of different manufacturer solutions is therefore always possible and allows the ideal tool to be used for a specific project at any time. Adding another solution often means nothing more than adding another link to the web browser favorites.

Concrete implementation in the SAP environment

What to look out for in practice? The topic of web-based software development is becoming increasingly important for the SAP community. On the one hand, the clear advantages of the new technology can hardly be denied:

Distributing and maintaining a cloud application is many times easier than maintaining a classic desktop application. On the other hand, SAP relies heavily on the use of its own "SAP Web IDE" for Fiori development and expansion.

The same will also apply in future to Hana, which already provides various development tools as a cloud solution. For this reason alone, it is necessary to take a closer look at the new technologies and integrate them into both the IT operating strategy and the project methodology, as there will no longer be any alternative and classic solutions in the foreseeable future.

After initial project experience with the new technologies, the following aspects should be considered when using a web-based development environment:

• Provide graphical application mock-ups in the web environment right from the start.
• Generate interface mock-ups of the on-premise systems at an early stage and test their functionality.
• Create an authorization concept for software development and project implementation as early as the concept phase.
• Define and communicate uniform development standards within the company.
• Provide the source code repository and bug tracking on-premise and link it to the web development environment.

The rapid provision of mock-ups is one of the major advantages of the new technology. As the web-based development environments work in an externally provided cloud, it is not initially necessary to use internal IT resources and systems to provide the company's specialist departments with a "demo application".

New applications can be created quickly and ready to run with the help of digital assistants. Standardized user interfaces and interface elements, such as text fields and buttons, are combined to create a complex application.

The created application can then be published online with just a few "clicks" and handed over to the specialist departments for review and discussion. The responsible employees can check the application directly, even on different devices such as smartphones, tablets or desktops.

Standards absolutely necessary

Uniform infrastructure and standards are becoming increasingly important as part of the new technology. The web development environments of the various manufacturers are optimized for their specifics and offer the optimal construction kit for their products.

From a software development perspective, it therefore makes sense to choose the right development environment in each case. However, business processes are often cross-system, meaning that more than one development environment is ultimately used.

In a project environment, this presents the challenge of leading teams with different technological backgrounds that use different tools to a uniform, consistent solution.

Standardization is one possible response to this challenge. However, care should be taken to pursue this approach as pragmatically as possible and to focus on the core areas.

For interfaces, for example, only one technology should be chosen if possible, and if the choice falls on "REST", for example, it must be fundamentally defined how this paradigm is to be implemented.

All supporting tools such as bug tracking, source code repository and documentation should also be selected as uniformly as possible and only once for all teams.

Standards are important, but only make sense if they are understood and applied. In practice, it is therefore necessary to define together with the project participants from development, infrastructure and the specialist department what is important and decisive for joint success.