Everything you should know about Anthos- Google’s multi-cloud platform

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What is Anthos?

Recently, Google reported a general availability of Anthos. Anthos is an enterprise hybrid and multi-cloud platform. This platform is designed to allow users to run applications on-premise not just Google Cloud but also with other providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Anthos stands out as the tech behemoth’s official entry into the quarrel of data centers. Anthos is different from other public cloud services. It is not just a product but it is an umbrella brand for various services aligned with the themes of application modernization, cloud migration, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud management. 

Anthos

Despite the extensive coverage at Google Cloud Next and, of course, the general availability, the Anthos announcement was confusing. The documentation is sparse, and the service is not fully integrated with the self-service console. Except for the hybrid connectivity and multi-cloud application deployment, not much is known about this new technology from Google.

Building Blocks of Anthos-

1. Google Kubernetes Engine –

Kubernetes Engine is a central command and control center of Anthos. Clients utilize the GKE control plane to deal with the distributed infrastructure running in Google’s cloud on-premise data center and other cloud platforms

2. GKE On-prem–

Google is delivering a Kubernetes-based software platform which is consistent with GKE. Clients can deliver this on any compatible hardware and Google will manage the platform. Google will treat it as a logical extension of GKE from upgrading the versions of Kubernetes to applying the latest updates. It is necessary to consider that GKE On-prem runs as a virtual appliance on top of VMware vSphere 6.5. The support for other hypervisors, such as Hyper-V and KVM is in process.

3. Istio –

This technology empowers federated network management across the platform. Istio acts as the service work that connects various components of applications deployed across the data center, GCP, and other clouds. It integrates with software defined networks such as VMware NSX, Cisco ACI, and of course Google’s own Andromeda. Customers with existing investments in network appliances can integrate Istio with load balancers and firewalls also.

4. Velostrata –

Google gained this cloud migration technology in 2018 to enlarge it for Kubernetes. Velostrata conveys two significant capabilities – stream on-prem physical/virtual machines to create replicas in GCE instances and convert existing VMs into Kubernetes applications (Pods). 

This is the industry’s first physical-to-Kubernetes (P2K) migration tool built by Google. This capability is available as Anthos Migrate, which is still in beta.

5. Anthos Config Management –

Kubernetes is an extensible and policy-driven platform. Anthos’ customers have to deal with multiple Kubernetes deployments running across a variety of environments so Google attempts to simplify configuration management through Anthos. From deployment artifacts, configuration settings, network policies, secrets and passwords, Anthos Config Management can maintain and apply the configuration to one or more clusters. This technology Is a version-controlled, secure, central repository of all things related to policy and configuration also.

6. Stackdriver –

Stackdriver carries observability to Anthos infrastructure and applications. Customers can locate the state of clusters running within Anthos with the health of applications delivered in each managed cluster. It acts as the centralized monitoring, logging, tracing, and observability platform.

7. GCP Cloud Interconnect –

Any hybrid cloud platform is incomplete without high-speed connectivity between the enterprise data center and the cloud infrastructure. While connecting the data center with the cloud, cloud interconnect can deliver speeds up to 100Gbps. Customers can also use Telco networks offered by Equinix, NTT Communications, Softbank and others for extending their data center to GCP.

8.  GCP Marketplace –

Google has created a list of ISV and open source applications that can run on Kubernetes. Customers can deploy applications such as Cassandra database and GitLab in Anthos with the one-click installer. In the end, Google may offer a private catalog of apps maintained by internal IT.

Greenfield vs. Brownfield Applications-

The central theme of Anthos is application modernization. Google conceives a future where all enterprise applications will run on Kubernetes.

To that end, it invested in technologies such as Velostrata that perform in-place upgradation of VMs to containers. Google built a plug-in for VMware vRealize to convert existing VMs into Kubernetes Pods. Even stateful workloads such as PostgreSQL and MySQL can be migrated and deployed as Stateful Sets in Kubernetes. In general Google’s style, the company is downplaying the migration of on-prem VMs to cloud VMs. But Velostrata’s original offering was all about VMs.

Customers using traditional business applications like SAP, Oracle Financials and also Peoplesoft can continue to run them in on-prem VMs or select to migrate them to Compute Engine VMs. Anthos can provide interoperability between VMs and also containerized apps running in Kubernetes. With Anthos, Google wants all your contemporary microservices-based applications (greenfield) in Kubernetes while migrating existing VMs (brownfield) to containers. Applications running in non-x86 architecture and legacy apps will continue to run either in physical or virtual machines.

Google’s Kubernetes Landgrab-

When Docker started to get traction among developers, Google realized that it’s the best time to release Kubernetes in the world. It also moved fast in offering the industry’s first managed Kubernetes in the public cloud. As there are various managed Kubernetes offerings, GKE is still the best platform to run microservices.

With a detailed understanding of Kubernetes and also the substantial investments it made, Google wants to assert its claim in the brave new world of containers and microservices. The company wants enterprises to leapfrog from VMs to Kubernetes to run their modern applications.

Anthos is a bright release of Google. It is taking a calculated risk in moving away from the cliched hybrid cloud narrative that its competitors are using to lure enterprises. Anthos is compared with Microsoft Azure Stack and AWS hybrid story consisting of VMware and Outposts also. The main difference between Google and the remaining lies in the technology foundation strongly rooted in containers and Kubernetes.

Google wants to capitalize on its pole position in the Kubernetes and cloud native ecosystem. It moved really fast to build an enterprise strategy around Kubernetes. With Anthos, Google aims to become the VMware of container ecosystem. It is precisely doing what VMware did to push its hypervisor and software-defined infrastructure in the enterprise.

But Microsoft is also investing largely in containers and Kubernetes. It is minimizing the gap between Azure and Azure Stack by incorporating its flagship public cloud services to the private cloud. Microsoft can play back the Anthos track with its Azure Kubernetes Service. It will be interesting to see what Redmond wants to do with Kubernetes on Azure Stack. If everything plays out in Google’s favor, Anthos will eventually be the preferred platform to run enterprise workloads.

Final Words-

If you’re interested to adopt cloud based development in your business, then we’re happy to help you get started. Solace is there to help you for cloud based development. Expert’s at Solace believe in the benefits of using new cloud technology- Anthos. We will provide the means to bring your company the success it deserves. Contact us for effective cloud based web development of your business using Anthos that will be the face of your business.

Role of Node.js in Internet of things (IoT)

Internet Of Things-

So as to use innovation to initiate business development, one needs to watch out for technological expansion. In this way many organizations are advancing by identifying the next “big thing”.  

To overcome the problems and achieve smoother flow in a business, eventually, every business needs to use data management tools, network control, and intelligent solutions. It is difficult to recognize the perfect technology that best suits your business requirements. Extensively, IoT, big data analysis, the cloud will bring significant changes in business process management.

IoT(Internet of things) is all about synchronized and connected environments across the system. This includes the integration of microservices, web, wireless technology, sensors, and devices.

Here Node.js comes into the picture. For the IoT application development, most systems failed to provide a uniform experience across the devices and real-time reflection through embedded systems.

Rapid growth-

The popularity of Node.js is rapidly increasing, but no one expected it would grow this quickly. Node.js is built on Google’s V8 open source JavaScript engine. Node.js is known for its speed, scalability and efficiency. This makes it ideal for developing data-intensive, real-time applications. So Node.js best for the IoT, which is depend on data-intensive, real-time devices and applications. Effective and secure communications and interactivity are of fundamental significance in the IoT, which is the very reason why APIs lend themselves so well to the IoT model. The most widely accepted use case for Node.js is API- For example, the first thing LinkedIn built in Node.js was its mobile API.

What Makes the Node.js a Great Choice for IoT Applications?

Role of Node.js in Internet of things (IOT)

There are many frameworks such as Hapi, Express and Restify designed for creating APIs in Node.js. Even without a powerful pre-built solution, it takes only a few lines of code to get an API started using Node.js. Devices within the IoT, such as sensors, beacons and wearables, generate large number of requests. Node.js is perfect for managing these requests via streams that can be processed and monitored very efficiently. Stream instances are basically Unix pipes. They can be readable, writable or both, and are easy to work with. Streams allow users to pipe requests to each other, or stream data directly to its destination. No caching, no temporary data–just stream from one place to another.

It’s also essential to note that the Node.js community likes IoT technologies, and early adopters of IoT have a tendency to use Node.js for experiments and products. In fact, the Node Packaged Modules (NPM) repository is an indicator of the association between these communities. It consists of more than 80 packages for the Arduino controller. And over 15 for Bluetooth Low Power, and multiple packages for the Pebble and Fitbit wearable devices.

Node.js also has very low resource requirements. This is a feature that developers are already using in data-intensive IoT scenarios. From wearables to M2M, Node.js is best for IoT. The bottom line is that developers building data-intensive, real-time IoT applications says that Node.js is a best fit.

Indeed, with its proven performance and the simplicity with which an API code base can be maintained, Node.js fits the IoT use case very well.

Best practices to keep in mind when planning an API-first architecture for the IoT with Node.js:

1. Build in fine-grained scalability and failover- By Writing multiple small API-First apps, you can independently scale out each functional component and gracefully fail-over when one instance goes down or crashes.
2. Focus on producing a clean, extensible design- An API-based design makes state explicit so it can easily be passed from one component to another.
3. Write lots of tiny apps- Instead of putting a big logic into a single process, separate functionality into smaller independent components that communicate with each other via APIs.

Need to develop iot for your business? Our expert’s are well trained for IoT development. They believe in the benefits of using Node.js for IoT development. To get a free quote for effective IoT development, contact us and will provide the means to bring your company the success it deserves.

WCF vs Web API: What to Choose for Your Project?

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Comparing WCF vs Web API for developing your project is not an easy task. These frameworks are competing with each other in terms of functionality and approach. Final result of selecting the one for development will greatly affect the project. Here we will see the important features and use cases of WCF and Web API that will help you to choose the right technology for your project development.

What is WCF?

WCF stands for Windows Communication Foundation. It is an effective platform for developing service-oriented applications. It allows developers to create secure, reliable, and also high profile development solutions which can be integrated across platforms and interoperate with existing investments.

• HTTP services are easily built with this new framework.
• Web API is open source. It is a perfect platform to create REST-ful services over the .NET Framework.
• As opposed to WCF Rest service, it uses the complete features of HTTP (such as response/request headers, caching, versioning, and numerous content formats)
• MVC features support controllers, routing, filter, action results, IOC container, model binders, or dependency injection, and unit testing that simplifies it and makes it more robust.
• It can be hosted on IIS or within the application.
• Its lightweight design makes it ideal for devices with minimal bandwidth.
• Replies are formatted by Web API’s MediaTypeFormatter into XML, JSON, or any other format you wish to add as a MediaTypeFormatter.

What is Web API?

Web API is a framework which allows you to build HTTP services for browsers and mobile devices. It is an ideal platform for developing RESTful applications on the ASP .NET Framework. The ASP.NET Web API is an extensible framework for building HTTP based services that can be accessed in different applications on different platforms such a web, windows, mobile devices, etc.

It’s similar to ASP.NET MVC because it consists of MVC features such as routing, controllers, filter, action results, IOC container, model binders, and dependency injection. It isn’t a part of the MVC Framework, though. It’s an aspect of the core ASP.NET platform which can be used with MVC and similar Web applications such as Asp.Net WebForms. It can also act as an individual Web services application.

• Only HTTP protocol is supported.
• Any client who understands XML can use it, but it is not open-source.
• It is based on return data and SOAP in XML format.
• Only IIS can host it.
• It supports HTTP POST and GET verbs by [WebInvoke] and [WebGet] attributes.
• webHttpBindings must be enabled if WCF as WCF Rest service use is required.
• Sending data via parameters using a WebGet warrants configuration. The UriTemplate must be specific.
• JSON, XML, and ATOM data formats are supported.

WCF vs Web API-

WCF vs Web API

1. Security-

When looking at WCF vs Web API, both frameworks have accepted security standards. Concerning WCF, skilled security helpers and also frameworks can offer protection on an enterprise-level, which includes security that holds the WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) guidelines. in Web API general web standards are used for security, like Token and Basic authentication . If correctly enforced, security in both frameworks will be as effective as the other, keeping in mind that several organizations sometimes need exact execution of protection. However, RESTful services offer more flexibility than SOAP. This can be helpful when authenticating an outside service like Google, Windows Live IDs, Twitter, or Facebook.

2. Purpose/ Functionality-

As mentioned above, SOAP services must be action-oriented. Also OData/REST must be very resource-oriented. While all action-oriented service can be changed to a resource-oriented service, there are several instances where a single SOAP may result in numerous REST calls. This generates extra overhead in calling the service, so that it makes the client’s code more complicated, and may result in data problems in badly developed systems. Properly developed REST services have the ability to mitigate this with indirect steps.  For example, a SOAP call that purchases an item for a shopper may do this:

 1. Produce order 

 2. Minimize the item’s stock quantity

 3. Produce a new shipping job

 3. Update customer’s order history.

That SOAP call may lead to a quartet of individual REST calls updating all of those resources, or, in a correctly developed system, one produce (POST) PurchaseOrder call that stimulates actions to update the remaining resources as needed. In short, RESTful services must be basic and atomic, yet SOAP services have the adaptability to be complicated and bulky.

Because they can be accessed freely in URLs, REST services are easier to find than SOAP services. Additionally, proper REST services are keen enough to set up the extent that idempotency and endpoints are concerned.

3. Overhead coding-

On the client’s side, it is easy to use HTTP to call a RESTful service, but deserializing and serializing items, hardcoding resource endpoints, and reproducing personalized returnable classes can be problematic. Minimal-level engagement with the web service is abstracted in SOAP services automatically. WCF has many configurations and warrants meticulous XML work to configure it properly. Apart from this, Web API has a regular ready-to-use setup that is effective for many services and offers personalized services.

4. Client Interoperability-

Not only RESTful services but also Web API, focusses on ease of use and being lightweight. Using the same HTTP calls, all applications that can access a website can also access RESTful service. If you’re directly comparing WCF vs Web API, this is different from SOAP, as the client needs to know the web service inside out when using the WSDL file. The WSDL configuration supplements some complexities and warrants extra details that may not be accessible on some devices (smart TVs, phones, and the like) as well as frameworks and programming languages.

5. Bandwidth/speed-

Because RESTful services use only basic HTTP, the response and request packets are usually smaller than SOP response and request packets, which package objects, parameters, metadata, etc. in an XML payload. This is necessary to consider when handling low bandwidth or mobile devices. The easy HTTP response and request also usually easy for people to read than SOAP response/requests. While that is more important because these services tend to be programmatically consumed.

Selection of WCF vs Web API-

1. If you Require a support for Message queues, end to end message security, duplex communication, distributed transactions, etc., you should choose WCF.
2. When you already have existing working WCF services and Wants to add HTTP support additionally, choose WCF.
3. A case where you want to create a resource-oriented service over HTTP you should choose, Web API.
4. If your project is an MVC application and wants some functionality over HTTP, choose Web API.
5. If you want to build an HTTP / RESTful services, select Web API.

It’s not possible to select a best in WCF vs Web API competition and state that which choice is superior to the next. There is a simple method of selecting best framework most suitable when developing a new web service. If it’s an internet/external web service, use Web API. While, if it’s an intranet/internal web service, use WCF.

Are you looking to develop a web application for your business? Then you are at the ideal platform. Solace is a software development company which specializes in custom applications development using WCF and Web API as our core strength and foundation. Contact us and we’ll be glad to help you through our experts to develop your next web app.

Role of Python in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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The choice of language for project development depends upon a lot of factors like personal preference, ease of code, availability of developers etc. Are you confused to choose a language for your next big AI project? The list you compiled might probably include LISP, Prolog, Java, Python, C# and maybe a few more. Most of the Artificial Intelligence projects uses Python for their development. Here we will see the reasons and uses of Python for AI development.

What is Python?

Python is an Oops based, high level, interpreted programming language. It is a highly useful language. It mainly focused on rapid application development (RAD) and don’t repeat yourself (DRY) also. Python works perfectly as a mediator language as well i.e. to connect existing components together. Python is one of the fastest growing languages because of its ease of learning, scalability and adaptability. Python’s support and ever evolving libraries make it a good choice for any project whether Web App, Mobile App, IoT, Data Science or AI.

Reasons of using Python for Artificial Intelligence-

Python for AI

Python is not limited to only one activity. Its growing popularity has allowed it to enter into some of the most popular and complex processes like Artificial Intelligence (AI).

1. Great Library ecosystem-

A great selection of libraries is one of the main reasons Python is the most popular programming language used for AI. A library is a pre-written piece of code that allows users to reach some functionality or perform different actions. Python libraries provide basic level items so developers don’t have to write code for them from the very beginning every time.

Libraries that you can use for AI-

• Panda- This library is for high level data structures and analysis. Panda allows merging and filtering of data, as well as collecting it from other external sources like Excel, for instance.

• Scikit-image- This library is used for image processing.

• PyBrain- PyBrain library is used for neural networks, unsupervised and reinforcement learning. 

• NLTK- Library NLTK is used for working with natural language recognition, and processing, computational linguistics etc.

• StatsModels– for statistical algorithms and data exploration.

2. Less Code-

AI consists of a lot of algorithms. Python provides ease of testing as compared to its competitors. This language helps in easy writing and execution of codes. Python can implement the same logic with as much as 1/5th code as compared to other Oops languages. 

3. Low entry barrier-

Working with AI means dealing with huge data that you need to process in a convenient and effective way. A low entry barrier means developers can easily adopt it. Python programming language looks like the ordinary English language, and that makes the way toward learning simpler. Simple syntax of Python allows you to work comfortably with complex systems, guaranteeing сlear relations between the framework components.

4. Flexibility-

This language is very flexible so using Python for Ai is a great choice. Besides, Flexibility permits developers to choose the programming styles which they are completely comfortable with or even consolidate these styles to take care of various kinds of issues in the most proficient manner.

• It offers an option to choose either to use OOPs or scripting.
• There’s also no need to recompile the source code, developers can implement any changes and quickly see the results.
• Programmers can combine Python and other languages to reach their goals.

• The imperative style consists of commands. With this style, you define the sequence of computations which happen like a change in the program state.
• The functional style is also called declarative because it declares what operations should be performed. It doesn’t consider the program state, compared to the imperative style, it declares statements in the form of mathematical equations.
• The object-oriented style is based on two concepts: class and object, where similar objects form classes. This style is not fully supported by Python, as it can’t fully perform encapsulation, but developers can still use this style to a finite degree.
• The procedural style is the most common among beginners, as it proceeds tasks in a step-by-step format. It’s often used for sequencing, iteration, modularization, and selection.

The flexibility factor decreases the possibility of errors because programmers have a chance to take the situation under control and work in a comfortable environment.

5. Platform Independence-

Python is a versatile language. That means it can run on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Unix and other platforms also. To transfer the process from one platform to another, developers need to implement some small changes and modify some lines of code to create an executable form of code for the chosen platform. Engineers can utilize packages like PyInstaller to set up their code for running on various platforms. This saves time and money for tests on various platforms. So the overall process becomes more simple and convenient.

6. Readability- 

Python language is very easy to read. Hence any Python developer can understand the code and can change, copy or share it easily. There’s no confusion, errors or conflicting paradigms, and this prompts to more efficient exchange of algorithms, ideas, and tools between AI professionals.

There are also some tools available like IPython.This provides extra features like testing, debugging, tab-completion, and others, and facilitates the work process.

7. Community Support-

It’s beneficial to have a strong community support built for the programming language. Python is an open-source language. This means that there are many resources available for programmers starting from beginners and ending with advantages. Python documentation is also available online as well as in Python communities and forums. Here programmers and machine learning developers discuss errors, solve problems, and help each other out.

Python programming language is absolutely free as is the variety of useful libraries and tools.

8. Popularity-

Due to the ease of learning, Python is attracting millions of developers to learn this language. In spite of the fact that AI Projects need a very experienced developer yet Python can smoothen learning curve. Due to its extended libraries and active community, it led to be one of the most growing languages today.

Know more about Python uses in Finance, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence at- Using Python in Finance, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence .

Are you interested to adopt AI technology for your business? Then you might need some help. Solace is an ideal place to start, because of the well trained developers in Python language. Solace team will be more happy to develop AI system for you and set you on your way to business innovation. Contact us for developing AI system to incorporate in a business which tends to success that you deserves.

Best Tips to improve your mobile app performance

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Nowadays, near about two and a half billion people around the world are using smartphones. Since, the approach of smartphones changed dramatically regarding how we interact with each other and with our world. News, banking, gaming, cooking, finance etc. any sector has an app dedicated to it. This app is available by just a single touch of a button. Mobile apps are the foundation of smartphone use. Comfort, utility, and assortment are the spine that goad the market forward. Any sector or a company that do not have an app released, is stepping backward in the growth competition.

Necessity of improvement in mobile app performance-

Mobile app performance

More than 50% of all the users are facing problems with mobile apps. Due to the lack of time, 80% of all consumers will retry an app if it doesn’t work properly at the first time. So mobile app performance should be taken seriously. What is app performance, really? Performance has to do with how fast or slows your app loads if the app crashes when it reaches a peak in user activity, and how smooth certain features (like payments) work.

In other words, “Performance is a product of multiple factors: the server, mobile device, network, and programming of the app itself.”

Target of Mobile app performance-

The focus should be – faster the better. One second delay in response can result in a 7% reduction in conversion. In general two seconds of loading time or less is needed for users to be satisfied. Research shows that for mobile apps(compared to mobile sites) 20% of the users even expect mobile apps to load instantly. Near about 4 in 6 people had a negative experience with mobile shopping. This is a serious issue, people not only leave after a bad mobile experience but also 51% buy from a competitor after. By using some best practices you can boost your mobile revenue. Because, if the mobile apps done right, it will be the best performing channel with e-commerce.

How to improve app performance?

1. Resize, cache, and compress images to reduce load time-

If your image is large, it will slow your app in order to properly load. Here are some tips that can speed up the functionality of your app. If you compress an image, you can reduce the size without compensating on the quality. Resizing image permits you to accommodate images to your mobile app, sparing the extra bandwidth that would be required to show the whole original image. Storing downloads pictures from the system onto the PC’s memory improves the performance. Once these images are there, mobile app will never again be required to load it from the external network each time, instead drawing on its own internal memory. These options will surely reduce the amount of work that your mobile has to go through, means load time will speed up.

2. Using a CDN to accelerate APIs, therefore reducing payload, latency, size and round-trip time-

APIs are useful for your app to communicate and display information originally received from other application, like weather or traffic, and display them in a comprehensive format. A content delivery network (CDN) uses servers across the nation to quicken API communication. By using a server that is geographically close to the user, payload, latency, size, and round-trip time is mitigated because of the reduced distance.

3. Cut down on features that are not essential for app performance-

Pointless features may make the application look prettier, yet they become a burden on execution. Many features that are necessary for the app to function slows down the app. Evacuating the superfluous weight and honing the features that are vital to the application upgrades speed, responsiveness, and by and large execution.

4. Reuse data templates-

Your app will function more fats if you have less data templated to load. Instead of using various data templates for your app to load, reuse the existing one that you have. Resourcefulness implies a lighter load to carry.

5. Load data as you need it by split up assemblies or pre-loading/ pre-fetching the data-

Loading of all applications data at a time will slow it down. To eliminate this issue, you should consider using split up assemblies to separate the information into effectively retrievable data. When preloading or pre-fetching data, the important information you’re looking for loads more quickly than other assets on the app, increasing the speed of relevant information. You should not load all the data on the app at a time. Load just important parts when necessary. 

6. Create an offline mode in case that network connection drops-

An offline mode creates a buffer for your data to be safely saved  on account of a sudden loss of network connection. When you are not using offline mode and if you were suddenly disconnected and all the data you were using is discarded. Offline mode gives you the option to save your data now and then return to it later once the user is reconnected. An offline mode implies the security in information, reliability, and user ease-of-mind

Testing of your mobile app performance-

Device performance-

1. Device compatibility-

You should aware of the fact- execution environments your mobile app will be able to run on. This includes what types of operating systems (such as Apple or Android) it can run on, screen sizes, resolutions, etc.

2. Memory consumption-

Smartphones have more memory to spare between everything that already installed. If your mobile app consumes less memory while in use, the phone will more efficiently function. There are many factors that affect memory consumption- like push notifications or memory leaks. This should be addressed to ensure excessive consumption is minimized.

3. Battery Consumption-

The battery life of your phone can be quickly reduced due to continual use of a mobile app. Special care should be taken to ensure mobile apps minimize unnecessary energy drain from the consumer’s phone.

The customer’s experience with your app is the most important thing. Most users, when suffered with a slow, unresponsive app, they uninstall the app immediately. Keep your first impressions positive with an effective, customer experience-focused app. With proper management of resources and features, a mobile app can prove to be an invaluable asset for your organization.

Need to develop best mobile app for your business? Solace developers are expert in new app development frameworks. Dedicated team will help you to develop effective and interactive mobile apps. Contact us for mobile app development that will be the face of your successful business

How to choose the right IoT Platform for your business?

https://solaceinfotech.com/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-iot-platform-for-your-business/

Internet of things are capturing strong market in  the world. It will continuously grow for the upcoming years. With this, it is also necessary to choose the right platform for IoT development. Right choice of platform will lead to the success of the project whereas, wrong choice will fall down the project. It causes loss of time and money also. Let us see, what is IoT platform?

What is IoT Platform?

An IoT platform is an integrated service that offers you the things you need to bring physical objects online. It needs to be capable of supporting millions of simultaneous device connections and easily allow you to configure your devices for machine-to-machine communication. The purpose of IoT device is to transfer data with other IoT devices or applications using internet transfer protocols. This gap between device and data network is filled by an IoT platform.

Connecting things to the internet is not easy like connecting laptop to internet. For this, you need a data system to move, understand traffic, record data and a messaging system that will let you know when an event occurs. There can be issues with this system. Such issues with device, protocol, compatibility or scaling of the application and all this can get difficult & expensive, if you don’t choose the correct platform for your IoT application. One must choose the right IoT platform according to the requirement of project. 

Types of IoT Platforms-

1. End-to-end IoT Platforms-

End-to-end IoT platforms provide the hardware, software, connectivity, security, and also device management tools to handle millions of concurrent device connections. It also provides all the managed integrations you need such as OTA firmware updates, device management, cloud connection, cellular modem, etc.,  to connect and monitor a fleet of devices online.

2. Connectivity Management Platforms-

These platforms offer low power and also low-cost connectivity management solutions through Wi-Fi and cellular technologies. This can range from connectivity hardware, cellular networks, and data routing features.

3. IoT Cloud Platforms–

Cloud platforms aim to get rid of the complexity of building your own complex network stack and offer the backend services (plus other services) to monitor and track millions of simultaneous device connections.

4. Data Platform

Of course, every type of IoT platform deals with data in some way. But these IoT data platforms combine many of the tools you need to route device data and manage/visualize data analytics.

Consider the following points for selection of best IoT platform for development-

1. Connectivity Method-

What is the type of connectivity you need? Do you need a Wi-Fi or cellular solution for your IoT product? You need to overview these needs and see how the vendor can address them.

2. Market –

How long has the IoT platform been in business? The IoT space is relatively new, but quickly building. Finding an IoT platform that has been offering services for 4+ years is usually ideal.

3. Geographic coverage-

Do they provide embedded sim with global support? Does the IoT platform cover the regions your business needs?

4. Type of service-

How does the IoT platform describe and sell themselves? Some services are purely connectivity platforms, while others are end-to-end solutions that offer the hardware, software, and connectivity. You need to analyze what your business requires.

5. Data Plan–

Does the vendor offer a fair data plan? You’ll want the ability to pause or suspend your data services at any time and the ability to control how much data that is used.

6. Security-

Examine how they’ve deal with security and privacy issues in the past and review their security content. You need to assess how their platform solves security issues and how it abstracts the complexity away from you.

7. Managed Integrations/ API Access –

How does the vendor integrate all the complex stuff that you need for IoT like cellular modems, carrier/ SIM cards, device diagnostics, firmware updates, cloud connections, security, application layer, RTOS into a simple package that your engineering team won’t have to worry about?

8. Data Access–

You should consider this important point for selecting the IoT platform. For this analyze the following questions and its answers- How will you integrate the data acquired through the IoT platform with your enterprise backends and current cloud service? What do you plan to do with this data? similarly, does the service match those needs?

9. Domain Experts/ Engineering Services/ Partner Collaboration-

IoT deployments are complex in nature. Hence, you need a partner who can help you through the product development process. Does the IoT platform help you service those needs?

10. IoT Ecosystem-

Take enough time to learn and understand the relationships between the services the IoT platform offers. This learning will help you to learn how their services can help you build your product. If you don’t understand, talk to a sales representative.

11. IoT Roadmap–

Consider these questions before selecting the IoT platforms. Does the IoT platform’s roadmap match your organization’s needs? Do they plan to expand into connectivity, data, hardware? How does that help you?

12. Hardware–

Does the vendor offer any off- the- shelf applications, developer kits, or starter packages for the specific use case you are targeting? You will likely have to do some customization, but not having to start from scratch can save significant time and effort.

13. Device Management

How does the vendor allow your to monitor, segment, and also manage IoT devices that are out in the field?

List of IoT platforms-

• Microsoft IoT Azure — Enhance your operational productivity and profitability with a preconfigured connected factory solution.
• Particle — Particle is an enterprise IoT platform that offers everything you need to build an IoT product, from device to cloud.
• Artik Cloud — The ARTIK IoT platform enables open data exchange for the Internet of Things.
• Salesforce IoT — Maximize your business efforts with IoT cloud services.
• Google Cloud’s IoT Platform— integrated services that allow you to easily and securely connect, manage, and ingest IoT data
• IBM Watson IoT — IBM’s new Watson Internet of Things (IoT) is a cognitive system that learns from, and infuses intelligence into the physical world.
• Xively Platform — an enterprise IoT platform to help accelerate your connected product or service.

At Solace, IoT Development is a strength of ours in which we take great pride. If you’re interested in adopting IoT for your business, then you might need some help getting started. We believe in benefits and effectiveness of using IoT in a business. Solace expert’s are here to help you with IoT development. Kindly contact us for any IoT development that set you on your way to business growth.

Top 3 Javascript (Js) Frameworks for 2019

https://solaceinfotech.com/blog/top-3-javascript-js-frameworks-for-2019/

JavaScript is a multi-worldview language. This language supports functional, event-driven and also imperative programming. Javascript was initially used for client-side. But nowadays it is used for server side programming also. In simple manner, JavaScript is a language of web.

What is Javascript ? And why to use?

JavaScript frameworks are among the most favored platforms for web development. A software framework is a deliberation in which software providing generic functionality can be specifically changed by  extra user-written code. JavaScript framework is an application framework written in javascript. Here programmers can manipulate the functions and also use them according to their requirements. Frameworks are adaptable for designing websites. Hence they are used by most of the programmers. JS frameworks are a kind of tool that works with Javascript easier and smoother also. Frameworks helps programmer to code the application according to the responsiveness of the device. This is the main reason for JavaScript of being popular. Let’s see best JS frameworks in 2019.

Best JavaScript Frameworks in 2019-

1. React.js-

This framework is created by Facebook engineer Jordan Walke and launched in 2013. React is highly efficient and declarative. JavaScript library used for building interactive user interfaces. This framework is used to create reusable user interface components for each state that can automatically update and render data without the need of reloading the page. Actually React is a library, not technically a framework. It is used to handle “View” layer in the MVC model for web and mobile apps. React can also be used to create native mobile application supported by both android and ios. With such a great amount to offer, React JS ruled 2018 over different frameworks and also React JS will keep on commanding in 2019 as well. 475k websites on the web are powered by React.

Pros of React.js–

Rich community-

React has large community on GitHub and is more than any other frameworks.

High performance-

React is popular for its high efficiency and also flexibility. It can be integrated with other frameworks without any issue. Also it can be used for both client and server side.

Large amount of resources-

React is maintained by Facebook, so there is huge availability of documentation and resources available on the web. This makes learning curve easy than AngularJS.

Unidirectional Data Flow-

Unidirectional data flow of react helps to ensure that any changes made to child element structure don’t affect the parent element structure.

Easy to maintain components-

React helps to reuse the code and also eases the maintenance of large scale projects.

2. Angular-

Angular is a front end web applications framework based on typescript. AngularJS was launched in 2010 while Angular 2 launched in 2016. It is one of the oldest modern JavaScript framework that allows users to build dynamic interactive websites. Regardless of being the oldest, it is still considered as a developer’s first choice. Hence it is one of the top JavaScript framework for 2019. This framework allows developers to build efficient and robust single page applications instead of HTML websites. Angular 2 introduced component-based architecture, improved dependency injection, logging service and inter-component communication also. While version 7 introduces improvements in performance, Angular material & CDK, dependencies for typescripts version 3.1, Node version 10. 350k websites on the web are powered by AngularJS/ Angular 2+ versions.

Pros of Angular-

• Native mobile app- Angular enables development of native mobile apps for both ios and android.
• Data binding- Apart from 2-way binding, angular 2 and beyond support 3 other types of data-binding namely – one-way property binding, event binding and interpolation also.
• Abundant resources and support- Google offers a rich treasure trove of resources and rolls out new updates and improvements every 6 months.
• Support for Progressive web applications- Angular is the first framework to integrate features for development of progressive web applications.

Cons of Angular-

• Knowledge of MVC- For using angular it is necessary to have a detailed understanding of model view controller architecture.
• Large learning curve- As compared to the three top JavaScript front-end frameworks, Angular has the steepest learning curve and suffers from a very high rate of abandonment. A large base of angular users has moved to Vue and react.
• Difficult Syntax- Angular has made a big leap in terms of syntax complexity after adopting TypeScript in Angular2 and beyond. It poses a steep learning curve for anyone making a transition from vanilla JS or jQuery.

3. Vue-

Vue is an open source javascript framework. It was released in 2014. By the last 2 years, Vue becomes more popular than Angular. Vue is built on concepts from other frameworks and libraries like angular and react. It offers compact lightweight solution including best features and practices. Near about 64k websites are powered by Vue.

Pros of using Vue-

• Flexibility: Flexibility of Vue helps developers to quickly adopt Vue with minimal effort.
• Lightweight Size: Vue is highly lightweight and compact in size. Compressed version of Vue is only 18 kb in size.
• Fast Configuration: Vue has an inbuilt MVC model. This makes configuration quick and easy compared to angular and react.
• Easy Learning curve: Learning curve of Vue is much easier than Angular and react. Only knowledge of HTML and JavaScript is required.
• Integration Capability: Vue can be used to build both SPAs and large-scale complex applications as well with easy integration with server-side frameworks like Laravel, Symfony Django etc.
• Transitions: Vue makes it easy to add transitions to elements when the are added or removed from the DOM.

Cons Of Using VUE–

• Poor Support: Vue doesn’t offer a big resource collection to new users. Due to the lower market share, developers who are new to Vue js might not find required support and resources.
• Small Community: A large chunk of Vue developer community is from non-English speaking eastern European countries. Community engagement used to be fairly low.

Conclusion-

JavaScript will continue to be at the heart of web and mobile app development for the future. JavaScript frameworks provide a flexible and efficient way of coding your applications. The decision of selecting an appropriate JavaScript framework is depend on the requirement of the project undertaken. 

Are you looking to develop an effective website for your business? Solace Infotech is a software development company which specializes in web development using new frameworks like Angular, vue, React. We will be happy to help you through our experts and set you on your way to business innovation. To get a free quote for web development that will help your business to stand out in a wide market, Contact us .