Executive Summary: How Instant IT® Computer-Generates Applications And Analytics
Instant IT automates IT work by taking operational business designs and turning them into ready-to-use business applications. How this is done is described here.
Instant Business Applications Instant IT® computer-generated custom business applications are ready-to-use instantly, provide immediate business benefits, increase IT productivity by 10,000%, and reduce application costs by 60%.
Enterprise-Scale Technologies Enterprise-scale IT solutions today use best-in-class technologies like open source software, containers, Kubernetes, and data streaming. The ability to generate applications also means they can be regenerated to use new technologies when they become available.
Operational Simplicity A transformed IT simplifies its operations by automating technical work, eliminating technology lock-in, and reducing IT complexity. The ability to have all Instant IT® applications and analytics use a single set of technologies also simplifies IT.
Instant IT generates complete, ready-to-use applications and analytics instantly support unique operations and work structures for transformed business operations.
For those interested in a more detailed description of Instant IT® computer-generated applications and analytics, keep reading or click on an item in the menu at the left to select a specific topic.
Instant IT® Automation Overview
Instant IT® computer-generated applications and analytics are InfoNovus’s patented method for developing a Business Design of how a business wants to operate, then generating a complete, ready-to-use custom application. Instant IT produces software applications that support exactly how companies want their businesses to operate.
InfoNovus Instant IT® Business Design is a complete and consistent process for capturing the business metadata needed to generate business applications and analytics instantly. Once a business design is finished, validated, and approved, Instant IT is an automated process that designs an application and its data schema without technical professionals or their artifacts, like an architecture or database design, program specifications, or other technical documents.
The corporate pain that comes from the dollars and delays involved in acquiring and installing hardware and software can finally be ameliorated. Instant IT® computer-generated applications deliver:
- The exact application software needed to support the business – no more, no less;
- Easy implementation with no need for system integration or application specialists;
- No application upgrades, only new or revised business designs; and
- Software that is easy to adapt to new business needs or to incorporate into additional business designs.
The Instant IT® Process For Generating Applications
Instant IT® application generation both accelerates and unifies development of software applications that support transformed business operations. Instant IT is built upon principles of software engineering and computer science:
- SPOT (Single Point of Truth) – This principle is about ensuring that every unique element exists, whether a datum or rule, in only one place (for program functions this may also be known as the DRY, or Don’t Repeat Yourself, Principle);
- Orthogonality – This principle is about isolating program functions so they do only one thing, as they are intended to do, without unintended consequences of side effects;
- Compactness – This principle strives for simplicity over complexity in order to keep program functions understandable.
- Open source – Instant IT® applications are generated using open source components in the application.
- Security – Instant IT® applications apply current best practices for security.
These principles work well together. Instant IT® computer-generated applications and analytics are constructed so each is based on the SPOTs in a business design, each of which the complete Business Design captures as compact and orthogonal. Program functions are constructed to conform to these principles and operate consistently in accordance with computer science.
The Curry-Howard isomorphism from computer science states that a functioning procedure is equivalent to a proof for transforming an input into an output, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The Curry-Howard isomorphism
Instant IT® computer-generated applications and analytics translate Business Designs into computer programs that apply these principles by utilizing technologies, data management approaches, and application structuring options consistent with the Business Designs.
Instant IT® Technology For Generated Applications
Instant IT® computer-generated applications and analytics require technologies that support software engineering principles and meet the needs of the business. The core technologies utilized by Instant IT are:
- Cloud – Instant IT® applications and analytics are designed to operate in the cloud of your choice.
- Containers and APIs – Instant IT® applications and analytics are delivered in Docker containers that use APIs coordinated with Kubernetes.
- Databases – Instant IT® applications and analytics utilize NoSQL databases that support multiple data types, a variety of schemas, data access via SQL, and enterprise-level performance. For companies that insist on using legacy databases, Instant IT can also support a range of relational databases.
InfoNovus will incorporate new technologies that operate at enterprise-scale as they emerge.
An important element of the Instant IT® process for generating applications and analytics is the selection of an Instant IT® supported technology a company wishes to use.
Structure And Operation Of Instant IT® Applications
Instant IT® Business Designs capture business metadata that describes how a business operates, which act as specifications for an application that Instant IT will generate. It does not capture a structure for the application that is to be generated.
Instant IT® applications and analytics can be organized into structures that best fit each company’s needs, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Options for Structuring Containerized Instant IT® applications and analytics
Another element of the Instant IT® process for generating applications and analytics is a customer’s selection of its structure. Regardless of the structure chosen, there are several features of Instant IT® applications:
- Individual users each have a specific menu of process actions. These menus are assigned based on the individual’s:
- Organization unit – only process actions performed by the organization unit are allowed to be selected for an individual;
- Team assignments – only process actions performed by the team are allowed to be selected for an individual; and
- Work responsibilities – the selection for an individual can be unique.
- The architecture framework that underlies Instant IT® applications and analytics ensures they utilize the same data and rules, as seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Instant IT® applications and analytics with unified data and rules
Data Management For Instant IT® Applications
Digital data exists in a physical form, which may not be suitable for every application and analytic need. This means that data must be structured to be in line with the SPOT principle to be a source of truth and yet support uses of data that need different structures. Instant IT® data management is a process that begins with design of SPOT data, identifies the need for different structures for data use, and keeps them all correct and consistent wherever used.
First, business metadata in a Business Design is analyzed to determine the application’s SPOT data objects, their relationships, the access paths used to retrieve information, and more. This understanding is used to design a physical structure for application data using a high-performing NoSQL platform, as in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Instant IT® applications and analytics SPOT data as JSON documents
This SPOT data structure supports all of a customer’s Instant IT® applications. It will also support ad hoc SQL queries and reports.
Advanced analytics, such as graphs, time series, statistical analysis, and others, require different data structures. With legacy IT, technical staff extract data and restructure it for the analytic need. With Instant IT, the new structures are designed and data formatted for them automatically. Further, as values change in the application’s SPOT data, they are automatically updated for analytics that use them (if desired).
Instant IT® data management also incorporates third-party and non-Instant IT data as part of data management for analytics and can run on a selection of relational databases as well.
The Value Of Instant IT® Computer-Generated Applications And Analytics
Instant IT® Business Design and computer-generated applications and analytics provide value in several ways:
- Speed to market – it is tough to beat instant application delivery when working to meet the operational needs of the business.
- Ease of maintenance – changes in the business are reflected by changes to business designs that are then used to generate enhanced applications instantly.
- Technology independence – Instant IT® applications and analytics are tied to business metadata, not technology, so to use a new technology, an existing business design can be regenerated with different technology selections.
- Determination of business value – InfoNovus determines the value of an application to the business using an ISO standard that measures the business functionality delivered, not labor effort hours, number of users, platform size, or other measures in use today.
Computer-generated applications improve IT productivity by 10,000% and reduce application costs by 60%. Instant IT®'s Business Value presents the data behind these metrics. Perhaps the biggest value lies in how Instant IT® Business Design, which is used to computer-generate ready-to-use business applications, aligns IT with the business and supports business agility.
Instant IT® Business Design and computer-generated applications make it possible for iterative refinements to be developed, prototyped, and validated quickly. It is much easier to adapt a business design to incorporate new requirements. InfoNovus Instant IT helps increase business agility by allowing the company to:
- Create or change a business design as needed and have its software generated and implemented instantaneously with no IT impact or delay;
- Get application software that matches its business design exactly;
- Share data and software components with other business designs easily; and
- Eliminate the number of technicians devoted to the ‘care and feeding” of application software.
Instant IT® Business Design and computer-generated applications change the mission of IT organizations so they can add value by:
- identifying and pursuing opportunities for improving and enhancing business process performance;
- providing business design standards, controls, and compliance for business data, rules, processes, and management; and
- reducing the resources required for platform management, performance management, application support, data center and network management, and disaster recovery.
Instant IT® Business Design and computer-generated applications help the business focus on its mission, markets, and objectives, and can make IT a source of innovation.