The first step for the innovative USoft 10 series for business-critical systems

Do you want to develop a new core application with low-code? Or do you want to make your existing architecture more flexible and simplify business-critical systems? Then we have good news. Because USoft 10, the new version of our low-code platform, makes it even easier to develop business-critical applications.

USoft has a clear vision: software must ensure that businesses have the freedom to completely control the digital world. This is why USoft 10 combines user-friendliness, freedom, and diversity of features with ensuring stability and consistency in large business-critical applications.

USoft is one of the few low-code players in the market with a platform focused on a business rules-driven approach. With USoft 10, we are taking the creation and maintenance of business-critical applications to the next level.

The most important developments at a glance

Integration of business and IT

USoft 10 integrates the Business Rules Management solution, USoft Studio, into the USoft platform. Organizations use Studio to define business operations, requirements, and wishes in natural language and in business models. Whereas Studio was previously offered as a separate SaaS application, this application now forms part of the USoft low-code platform. This further integration brings the context, business rules, and processes even closer to software development. This makes it even easier for software developers to match functionality to business needs and to monitor consistency in complex applications. It also means that specification and implementation can proceed practically in parallel by speeding up the development process and simplifying the management process.

Combination of ultimate freedom and controllability

USoft 10 gives organizations ultimate freedom. The graphical user interface (GUI) in USoft 10 provides access to the latest technology, to enable rapid development of beautiful applications. It can also be easily linked to other applications. In addition, developers can more easily use third-party components and extensions, no matter what development language they are written in. And integrating with complex AI algorithms is as easy as adding simple services. And while such great freedom of development would normally lead to a cluttered IT landscape, USoft 10 ensures a clear overview and consistency. This is seen as one of the most important potential accelerators for software development.

USoft 10 makes the work of IT teams a lot easier. They have a better overview of large applications with many integrations.

Cloud

More and more organizations want to run their software in the cloud. USoft 10 makes this easier. For example, support for containerization and CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery) has been further improved, which makes it easier from a DevOps perspective to get solutions into production quickly. USoft 10 also lays an important foundation for making the step to cloud-native.

Exchange ready-made building blocks in the USoft Community Platform

The introduction of USoft 10 is accompanied by the launch of the Community Platform: the place to share low-code knowledge, get in touch with peers and USoft experts, consult product documentation, share components, and exchange ideas for future developments. And as part of the USoft 10 series, USoft will soon also be launching a Community Edition of the platform.

Developer-first approach

In short: USoft 10 meets the needs of developers and architects even better. USoft’s CTO, Frank Rijnders, therefore refers to this release as the ‘Developer First Edition’. “With USoft 10 we are making the lives of software developers a lot easier. We are offering many new technical tools and are laying a solid foundation for upcoming functional developments in areas such as cloud, AI, new web technologies, and strengthening our no-code and low-code capabilities.”

Would you like to know more about the most important new technical features in USoft 10, in the areas of authorization, security, graphical user interface? Click here.

The result: A shorter time-to-market and a lower TCO

USoft 10 makes the work of IT teams a lot easier. They have a better overview of large applications with many integrations and can see at a glance which components and parts are affected by a certain change. This allows decisions about new functionality to be made more quickly. In this way, USoft 10 shortens application development times and simplifies administration. This translates directly into a shorter time-to-market for new functionality, and a lower TCO.

Shorter time-to-market

USoft 10 shortens software development time due to:

• Specification and implementation of new functionality in USoft 10 running practically in parallel.
• USoft Studio includes a new modeling technique to generate solutions from models even faster and in natural language. This ensures that the traditional gap between business and IT is reduced because they always speak the same language and thus realize new functionality with less re-work (due to ambiguities).
• USoft 10 makes it even easier to reuse existing components.

USoft 10 also shortens the other phases of the development process: testing, acceptance, and production. Test automation has been part of the USoft platform for years and has been further improved. The CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) also enables even faster deployment of functionality, especially if the software is deployed in the cloud.

Lower TCO

The costs of an application are determined not only by the development time but also, and in particular, by its maintainability. USoft 10 features various aspects that contribute to simplicity in maintenance and management:

• Good maintainability: Through the use of natural language, even developers who have not been involved in building the application understand how the application works, without having to delve into the documentation. This makes it easier for them to enrich the application with new functionality and keep it up to date.
• Excellent traceability:
  Implementations are automatically linked in the platform, in the background. The relationships are automatically documented as a result. Thanks to the good traceability, you can see at a glance which parts in the software form a logical whole and how the various components are related to each other. This allows you to
  • 1) find something quickly (for example, on the basis of an initial business rule specification);
  • 2) quickly unravel the interrelationships in the application;
  • and 3) if you are new to a team, quickly find your way around.
• High consistency: The USoft Rules Engine also constantly checks whether everything complies with the set requirements. As a result, you cannot change anything in the data if it does not comply with the rules. This ensures a high consistency.
• Reuse of existing components: The USoft platform supports possibilities for reuse. This covers aspects such as standard components, services, parts of a data model, GUI components, and of course the business rules. This reusability leads to even greater speed in the development of new functionalities. USoft is also taking an important step in making off-the-shelf components shareable. For example, the development platform provides a set of standard components and with its community platform, USoft is committed to further facilitating the sharing of these components between USoft users.

The result of software development with USoft 10? With fewer developers, you can build business-critical applications that can be easily maintained over a longer period of time.

In short, with USoft 10 we are treading an ambitious path for the future. A future in which we can develop the platform even more easily and meet the needs of our customers.