Architecting for change: Embracing the power of composability.

Now, more than ever, businesses must navigate uncertainty and swiftly adapt to changing economic conditions—consider the effects of recent events like the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and the increasing prevalence of AI. As the speed of change quickens, organizations need to innovate and rapidly adjust their IT systems to meet evolving business demands.

Many architects may find themselves wishing they could keep pace with these changes by assembling, reassembling, and extending their IT systems as easily as building with Lego blocks. Composable Business Architecture brings this vision to life by incorporating key architectural principles such as modularity, composability, and reusability. By embracing these principles, organizations can make strategic architectural decisions that emphasize the essential qualities of flexibility, agility, and adaptability.

While the advantages of a Composable Business Architecture can be understood conceptually, practitioners know that appealing ideas alone won’t suffice in real-world scenarios. In practice, numerous challenges can arise when trying to establish a composable architecture: multi-cloud environments, hybrid cloud and on-premises setups, conflicts between business IT teams and corporate IT teams, and insufficient governance.

In such circumstances, it’s crucial to seek all the support available, from platforms and infrastructure to technology, to turn the composable architecture into a reality.

Let’s explore these principles further, examine best practices for their implementation, and discuss how to weave them into an organization’s framework using APIs, integration technologies, and marketplaces.

Change is the new normal

Economic uncertainty has been on the rise in recent years as businesses have faced numerous external, unpredictable events, including a pandemic, supply chain shortages, de-globalization, wars, energy crises, skill shortages, inflation, and climate change. While the future remains uncertain, the level of unpredictability continues to grow.

The first step is to respond to changes as they occur. Businesses aim to adjust to these external shifts, which necessitate modifications across all areas, including their IT systems. Historically, altering IT systems was challenging due to their inflexible nature, making it difficult for businesses to adapt quickly.

The second step involves not just reacting but also preparing for change. This begins with acknowledging the truth in Prof. Frederick P. Brooks’ statement, “Successful software always gets changed,” from his book The Mythical Man-Month. This reality is more relevant today than ever, as anyone involved in software development can attest. However, managing this change can be quite difficult if your software architecture is rigid.

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Given that change is now a constant, it would be unrealistic to try to create inflexible IT systems, assuming they will remain unchanged for decades. Progressive businesses not only respond to change but also proactively prepare for it.

However, preparing for change is more complex than it may seem. The challenge is that you cannot just prepare for one scenario; you need to adopt a systemic approach that considers various potential situations, providing you with options to respond effectively. Being ready for change means steering clear of rigidity and emphasizing flexibility, allowing you to adjust the system with minimal disruption.

Is your system architecture resistant to change?

What should you prioritize when faced with the oncoming storm of change?

In nature, trees may snap in a storm, while bamboo endures. The key difference? Trees are rigid, whereas bamboo is flexible, enabling it to withstand strong and shifting winds.

In our architecture, we should strive to eliminate rigidity and instead cultivate flexibility. The challenge is finding the right balance of flexibility, as we want to avoid descending into chaos.

Flexibility is essential for effectively managing change. So, how can you create IT systems that are as adaptable as bamboo? From the outset, it should be a priority to design systems that are easy to modify. Composable architectures, which naturally incorporate flexibility, make it easier to navigate change.

Principles for flexibility and managing change

Several principles contribute to more adaptable architectures: modularity and composability, cloud scalability, and the democratization of digital solutions.

The aim should be to develop flexible systems that can be readily adjusted to meet evolving business needs.

How should you break down the system?

The principles of modularity, composability, and reusability, akin to building with Lego, are crucial for creating more flexible systems, as highlighted by D. L. Parnas. The focus should be on developing modules with strong internal cohesion and assembling them in a lightweight manner, meaning with minimal coupling. Today, these modules are represented through APIs, events, and data, adhering to the same decomposition principles. Essentially, you transform your system into a set of Lego blocks.

How should you structure the work?

Empowering Business-IT teams to develop digital solutions is key to democratizing the work. AI plays a significant role in this democratization process. However, governance must be established to provide guidelines and manage complexity. Ideally, your development platform should offer user interfaces that accommodate both non-technical users and specialists, enhancing collaboration and efficiency.

On which platforms should the system operate?

Cloud-based platforms and architectures are optimal for flexibility. Scalability is a crucial element of flexibility, best realized in the cloud. Nevertheless, certain components might be more effectively deployed near the data source in local regions or on-premises to meet specific non-functional requirements. This often leads to a hybrid architecture for many organizations.

Which tools should you use?

Building a composable architecture can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It’s essential to choose the right tools that enable you to achieve your goals more efficiently and reliably. An integration platform that combines all three technologies in a framework designed for complex hybrid environments and diverse user types, known as a Super iPaaS, can significantly accelerate the process.

Now, let’s explore how we can implement these concepts to create a more adaptable architecture.

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The Lego Principle: Modularity, composability, and reusability

Today’s enterprise IT environments have evolved organically into diverse ecosystems. They usually consist of a mix of cloud-based and on-premises applications, SaaS solutions, vendor-supplied software, custom-built applications, and legacy systems running on mainframes.

To enhance flexibility, the data and functionalities within this landscape must be accessible as modules, often through APIs. Most SaaS offerings come equipped with APIs, either as API-first or headless API solutions. For custom-built or legacy systems, you typically need to develop your own APIs. A Super iPaaS platform can assist you in creating these APIs, providing a standard RESTful interface on the front end and a tailored connection on the back end that aligns with the technology stack of your custom or legacy applications.

Once your system landscape is partially integrated with APIs, you may find yourself managing numerous APIs. It’s crucial to govern the design of these APIs, including aspects like observability and security, to maintain the integrity of the solutions built around them. A Super iPaaS platform, with its integrated API management capabilities, helps you keep track of the various APIs, regardless of their location, and ensures they are operated, maintained, and governed according to a unified set of quality standards.

API Developer: Responsible for creating APIs and offering them as foundational elements on the platform. This role anticipates a self-service approach from the platform.

API Consumer: Aims to address specific business needs through IT. This persona seeks to quickly identify and assemble the appropriate APIs, potentially using graphical tools and AI assistance. The ability to easily and straightforwardly combine these building blocks is essential.

Platform Operator: Manages the platform’s infrastructure and a marketplace with self-service features, emphasizing governance. Typically, Corporate IT departments assume the roles of platform operators and API developers, while business IT teams act as API consumers. This aligns with the principle of democratization.

Democratization of access to data and capabilities

Traditionally, IT solutions and integrations were developed by a centralized corporate IT, which often distanced itself from the diverse needs of various business functions, creating bottlenecks for requests from across the enterprise.

Increasingly, IT teams within business units are being established and empowered to lead digitization projects. The era of referring to IT functions in business units as “shadow IT” is over. The prevailing mindset is now “all hands on deck,” which is essential for managing change. The strength of business IT lies in its closer alignment with business needs, quicker feedback loops, and deeper domain expertise within the IT team. Consequently, Business IT is better positioned to deliver digital innovations, achieve faster turnaround times, and provide greater autonomy.

However, the system must still prioritize safety, security, and performance—responsibilities typically managed by Corporate IT. Therefore, collaboration between Business IT and Corporate IT is essential. A common division of responsibilities is:

Corporate IT usually establishes a secure platform that allows Business IT to innovate within certain boundaries, constraints, and governance. Business IT leverages this platform to develop solutions tailored to their specific business needs. While Business IT typically operates on this platform, Corporate IT is responsible for managing it. Some companies even create fusion teams, where Corporate IT and Business IT work together in a DevOps framework.

A Super iPaaS serves as the secure platform for Business IT to efficiently and safely create integrations that Corporate IT can easily manage. With its visual interface, predefined connectors, and AI assistance, Business IT can achieve its objectives swiftly. Corporate IT oversees the Super iPaaS platform, ensuring smooth connectivity to both cloud and on-premises resources, curating the available connectors, and maintaining IT security.

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Embracing the cloud

Many organizations are transitioning parts of their system architecture to the cloud to benefit from its scalability and flexibility. However, the cloud is not a one-size-fits-all solution; various vendors and service types are utilized, often strategically chosen to maintain some level of independence from any single cloud provider.

This leads to a hybrid environment, where some systems remain on-premises, others are in the cloud, and multiple cloud providers and services are employed. In this context, flexibility becomes an advantage. Systems can be shifted to different cloud providers, moved from on-premises to the cloud, or selectively transitioned from the cloud to edge computing.

Additionally, global organizations must adhere to data governance regulations, which dictate that data can only be stored and processed in specific jurisdictions and their corresponding cloud regions. As a result, global organizations often need to deploy functionalities to cloud centers across various jurisdictions.

In today’s cloud environments, there are two main types of challenges:

First, you need to develop separately for various deployment scenarios across multiple clouds, regions, and on-premises setups. Second, from an operational standpoint, it’s crucial to maintain visibility over all deployed APIs and integrations, regardless of their location. While each cloud provider may offer a control plane, it typically only manages elements within its own cloud, leaving out deployments on other providers and on-premises systems. If these challenges are not addressed, the benefits of cloud computing, such as scalability and elasticity, can be overshadowed by increased complexity. A Super iPaaS addresses these issues by providing:

An independent control plane that spans APIs and integrations across all your deployment targets, regardless of the cloud provider. This makes multi-cloud strategies more viable.

The ability to develop once and publish anywhere, restoring flexibility in your cloud strategy.

By offering these two key features—the control plane and the develop once-publish anywhere capability—a Super iPaaS makes managing hybrid setups and multi-cloud environments easier for composable architectures.

Accidental complexity: Using the wrong tools for Composable Architecture

When you use inappropriate methods to handle change, you can inadvertently introduce accidental complexity on top of the essential complexity that is inherent to the problem and the business domain. Accidental complexity occurs when the wrong tools are applied to solve a problem. For instance, using a hammer to chop down a tree creates unnecessary complications—similarly, using the wrong APIs, API management, or integration platforms can complicate the creation of IT solutions.

webMethods.io iPaaS helps you steer clear of accidental complexity and serves as a foundation for a composable business architecture.

While change and disruption can feel daunting, they only pose a challenge when faced with inflexibility—or a rigid organizational structure. By embracing the principles of a composable business architecture, you can gain the agility needed to navigate the rapid pace of change. This allows you to transform change into an ally, creating opportunities for greater innovation and driving future growth.