As a writer, I have to write less but read more and from the experience that I gathered from technical journals, and by being a part of an enterprise software development company, I could conclude that there are two main entities that play the entire game for an Enterprise Business.
The one is the ‘IT Team’, which keeps the business running by churning out the newest possible solutions. And the other one is the ‘Management’, which makes sure to minimize the risk and keep the business safe from hazardous compliance issues.
However, as far as the term ‘enterprise-grade software’ is concerned, we must first understand the meaning of an ‘enterprise software and then how it becomes an ‘enterprise-grade solution’?
Enterprise-Grade Software: What Is It?
Note that, when a business of large scale desires to fulfill its needs through digital means, an enterprise-grade software solution is all that the business would seek.
What makes an ‘enterprise-grade software solution’ different is its ability to help the organizations to keep their in-house software solutions functioning well with the specific support required to be in the market.
It facilitates the business, especially in the following four things-
- Scalability
- Security
- Integration
- Compliance
When a business demands to scale itself into a larger level, and the existing enterprise software solution proves itself unable to provide adequate scalability, it can’t be termed as an enterprise-grade software solution.
Getting the product to be licensed and adequate support to keep it from major compliance-based issues as well as technical issues is one of the most crucial identifications of being an enterprise-grade software solution.
Integration abilities are something that is very desirable simultaneously. An enterprise-grade software solution should allow inter-software integrations for better execution and operability without compromising with anything major.
Security or encryption support is the main thing why a business seeks an enterprise-grade software solution. The frequent exchange of information is quite obvious and unavoidable for any business. But the same demands adequate security simultaneously due to foreign server involvement.
If an enterprise software solution is able to provide adequate security to the business and data it shares, it is a quality that enterprise-grade software solution renders.
Let us move forward to the stages that are commonly suggested by the professional IT services providers and experts suggest-
Stages In The Development of Enterprise-Grade Software Solution
First of all, it should be very clear that the development of a consumer-based software solution is different from the development of an enterprise-grade software solution.
Now, when it comes to its initial requirements, it should be noted that-
- An enterprise-grade software solution would require additional development resources like –
- API management
- Audit trails
- Infrastructural management system
- User management system
- Secure (encryption) support especially at login pages
- Unit tests (QA & testing support)
- Localization, etc.
- Once, the above-mentioned resources are available, then only an enterprise-grade application can be developed. Without them, a consumer-based application could be easily developed but that too would result in an insecure application that would get encroached in a very short period of time by unwanted spiers.
- API management, Audit trails, user and infrastructural management are some things that are worthless to explain here but can be comprehended by the meaning they convey on reading them.
However, Unit testing and Localization are something that demands a bit of explanation.
Therefore, unit testing refers to getting the application regularly scrutinized by the testing tools. Once it is accomplished, localization would secure the software solution by introducing some familiarity to the software with the local market and a specific set of people at unique geographical locations.
Why Enterprise-Grade Software Is Important?
A small-scale business usually depends upon its applications to keep running, and in the case, an application fails meanwhile the operations, the entire business suffers. Therefore, bigger enterprises or businesses with larger-scale production usually prefer to run with enterprise-grade software solutions.
However, in the case of other software-based resources, there are a handful of alternatives available in the market for them but not for enterprise-grade applications.
Difference between Enterprise Software & Enterprise-Grade Software Solutions
When a business operates its overall operations through a website solution and claims for that website as ‘the face of the business, it can be termed as an enterprise software solution for the business.
However, the software that provides all the above functionalities along with Scalability, Security, Integrability, and Compliance safety, could be an enterprise-grade software solution.
Software tools that are usually adopted to fulfill a client’s requirement, or to get the testing part done, there are multiple options in the market for this to be done. Or, even if the tools pause due to some technical issues for some time, the business does not have to lose its potential customers at all.
However, such a fault or looseness in the case of security isn’t entertainable at all, and thus, enterprise-grade solutions are required.
The stages to develop a consumer-based software solution commonly suggested by the professional IT services providers and experts are mentioned stepwise below. The steps in this case would remain the same for any sort of software development for ages ahead.
The reason being, they are the most basic fundamentals, to begin with, any sort of software development, that is if applied even with the software that doesn’t have to do anything with the enterprise-grade, it would be worth implementing them.
Basically, an enterprise-grade software solution facilitates the corporate business inefficiently showcasing the idea, the policies it has adopted and helps the business in mitigating the possible obstacles via digital means by providing them quick controls that could catch, handle, manage, mitigate, leverage, enhance the business affecting factors in the real-time.
Thus, by including the consumer software development side as well, the following would be the stage-wise steps to be taken or implemented by the business owner to achieve utmost success and minimum business disruptions-
- Identify the objectives, targets, and analyze the business potential
Identifying the purpose of business before beginning with it would later become essential but is fundamentally obvious first. Because without an objective and target to achieve, a business is just an idea to work ruthlessly upon with no sight of vision.
Objective analysis is also important to hire adequate resources for the business.
Secondly, the target analysis would help decide and provide a particular pace to the business.
Once, both the fundamental things are done, they anonymously define the business potential and bring the possibilities that the business could achieve.
- Roughly write the theme and get it designed.
Preparing a rough business plan along with a rough design layout helps in developing the solution faster. To say, if an eCommerce-based start-up is to set up, the ecommerce software solutions provider would definitely ask for the desired plan you have. If you would have one, the execution would take less time rather than the other way around.
And using a CMS like WordPress as a tool, rough designs can be easily prepared for a website solution.
- Analyze the requirements to be in the solution
Requirements in the solution would be a crucial part but can be analyzed only once the objectives, audiences to be targeted are pre-defined. It would help in choosing the technology stack required to develop the desired solution.
Otherwise, there are hundreds of development platforms available in the market for consumer-based solutions, how would we decide to choose one out of them?
Thus, the requirement analysis would be the base to choose the technology stack.
- Regular quality inspection and testing
Once, the technology stack is chosen and the development would have begun, its regular test meanwhile development is a must to avoid end-time hustle and bustle.
- Deployment and Maintenance part
Deployment and maintenance part is the last but not the least step to develop an enterprise software solution for consumers as it requires a team to operate and regularly maintain the application.
The enterprise software developers are desirable and would require adequate resources to handle and manage things meanwhile the operations keep the business running without any hindrance.
In the Nutshell,
We have seen both sides of enterprise software development. The first one i.e. the main subject of this article, and the second one i.e. consumer-based enterprise software solution, so that many people get confused by thinking that the first and the second thing are the same.
Enterprise-grade applications and enterprise software applications based on consumers are two totally different pictures to view at.
We are just required to sometimes see things quite minutely to understand the meaning and realize the huge difference between two similar-looking objects. After all, this is the technical world, where technical knowledge only would be the savior.
Author’s Bio: Alicia is a technical content writer and is associated with A3logics for over a couple of years. She has a keen interest in elearning software solutions and is often found struggling with some unique topics for her upcoming projects. She is often found discussing the latest developments with the technical team. When not working on any of her writing projects, she is either reading any of the Agatha Christie mysteries or busy gardening.