The NSX Software Factory

A Unified Command Center for Your Entire Software Landscape

In today’s dynamic digital environment, an enterprise doesn’t rely on a single application; it thrives on a complex ecosystem of interconnected software. While NSX provides powerful tools like the Micro Radiant and Expanders to build evolutionary software, the real challenge lies in managing and evolving your entire application portfolio.

The Challenge: Beyond Individual Applications

An application might be feature-complete, but it’s never truly “finished.” To remain valuable, it
must continuously adapt to its evolving ecosystem. This includes everything from user
interface enhancements and API updates to critical security patches.

The software development lifecycle is a well-understood concept, but traditional approaches
often fall short when managing a diverse and distributed application landscape. NSX
applications, with their fixed code and deployment structures, present a unique opportunity
for a more streamlined and integrated approach.

The Solution: A Technology-Agnostic Model for Your Software Landscape

At NSX, we’ve developed technology-agnostic model to organize your entire software
landscape. From writing code and deploying applications to tracking versions and
vulnerabilities, the NSX Software Factory provides a unified view and control over your
software development lifecycle.

Whether your code repositories are in GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab, or you deploy
applications to AWS, Azure, or on-premise, the Software Factory can manage it all. By
leveraging a universal data structure, the Prime Radiant integrates information from every
step of the development lifecycle, allowing you to actively use that data to make informed
decisions.

The NSX Software Factory provides a unified view that is seamlessly integrated with your individual application development. It’s not just about viewing data; it’s about acting on it. You can push security fixes, integrate vulnerability reports, promote new libraries, and much more, all from a single, centralized platform.

Key Features and Benefits

  • Application Management: Maintain a comprehensive list of every active and
    inactive application across your organization.
  • Version Tracking: Keep track of every release and changelog for a complete history
    of your applications.
  • Repository Management: Know exactly where your code is managed and its
    current state.
  • Resource Tracking:
    • Track which software libraries and artifacts are used in your projects.
    • Detect outdated dependencies and opportunities for standardization.
    • Seamlessly integrate with the NSX platform to get detailed information about
      Expander usage in your projects.
    • Get a complete list of all technologies used within each project.
    • Identify anomalies or unfamiliar technologies that could be replaced by
      company standards.
  • Deployment Overview:
    • View how many servers are being used for your applications.
    • See where your applications are deployed.
  • Code Analysis:
    • Standardize code metrics across different applications and platforms.
    • Identify laggards and decreasing code quality.
    • Validate both software best practices and security vulnerabilities.
  • Application quality metric tracking:
    • Gain insights into your software development by tracking every metric through
      time.
    • Understand how an application has changed throughout its versions: more
      dependencies, more custom code, more legacy? Or has it improved?

Seamless Integration with the NSX Platform

The true power of the Prime Radiant shines when used in conjunction with the Micro Radiant
and Expanders. The NSX Software Factory offers extensive integration with the NSX platform.

Software Factories

Many organizations are striving to address their IT needs with a structured application landscape based on reusable building blocks. Others are trying to extend their IT landscape full of packages and services with reliable and mission critical custom development.

NSX tools and methodologies offer the productivity of code generation tools combined with the unique evolvability of NS applications during both development and the entire lifecycle. The evolvable nature of NS applications, including the unique feature of rejuvenation, enables these application landscapes to grow and adapt to the ever-changing technology landscape.

Some cases

NS Competence Center

The Center for Application Development and Maintenance (B-CAO) of the Dutch Tax Office wants to be a reference in application development, building sustainable and easy to maintain applications for happy customers. Within this department, a Normalized Systems Competence Center (CCNS) has been set and grown over the last couple of years. Currently, the CCNS consists of 45 people and has delivered more than 10 applications into production.

NS Engines for ACPaaS

The Antwerp City Platform as a Service (ACPaaS) has been developed by Digipolis to collect and unlock digital services for the city of Antwerp and its inhabitants. ACPaaS contains a whole set of engines that can be consistently re-used to support the development of various data and application services, both in administrative domains and in an Internet of Things context. NSX has contributed to the development of numerous ACPaaS engines.

Normalized Systems eXploration

Find out more on how we can help you with a Normalized Systems eXploration.

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