Technica Radar

The API-first approaches of public clouds can automate the creation and modification of infrastructure. In the infrastructure-as-code approach, the complete infrastructure is modeled as code and then created through tooling. In this way, new infrastructures can be created or existing ones can be updated and adapted to new requirements as part of a continuous deployment.

IaC allows the infrastructure, which tends to become more complicated, to always be under control. It empowers teams to deploy their public cloud infrastructure faster and with less risk. IaC requires a certain amount of effort, but it can pay for itself when used in multiple environments such as development, testing and production.

Looking ahead, the emerging Distributed Cloud trend addresses, among other things, the challenges of maintaining distributed, more complicated infrastructures.

Cyber threats are becoming more complex and require new protective measures. “The motto ‘Come on, let’s do it this way’ won’t get you very far today,” says Patrick Labud. With security engineering, security is already defined when software is programmed.

The principle of “security by design” states that security should be regarded as a quality attribute of software. Patrick Labud is convinced that security engineering is an investment that pays off: “Preventive attention to secure systems is cheaper than plugging gaps afterwards or even repairing the damage of a hacker attack.”

In concrete terms, security engineering means that security is taken into account in the complete software engineering cycle. For example, using threat modeling or the “zero trust” approach, which assigns users only as many rights as they really need.

Security engineering also means that business-critical data is given special protection, or that a system does not rely on a single firewall, but instead creates different zones or subnetworks behind it.

With System Thinking, companies, digital environments or software development are viewed as systems – and increasingly also referred to as socio-technical systems. Systems theory as a scientific branch has its roots in 20th century sociology and political science, but is currently experiencing a renaissance

“Methods such as value stream mapping help identify idle times, waiting times and dead ends in order to optimize the flow of decisions or processes,” says Patrick Labud. Demand for such analyses is increasing in part because of the availability of new tools that can be used to make corresponding visualizations.

“We often apply value stream analyses to transformation projects or to software architectures, trying to consistently eliminate non-target elements between the initial state and the target state through the process of product development throughout the company,” Labud says.

The method helps identify optimization potential around a development team.

Digital technologies promise to improve the work and everyday lives of people and companies. But they can also be misused: Misinformation and agitation flood social networks, for example, or drones spy on neighbors instead of delivering a package.

“The question of whether and how a technology can be abused is often lost in product development because of the enthusiasm for the new feature,” says Patrick Labud. The Ethical OS framework was developed to address such questions as well.

It can be used to uncover problem areas and risks, better assess negative consequences of innovations and prevent moral quandaries. “Ethical OS helps companies take responsibility and anticipate consequential damage so they don’t regret developing their products and services in the future,” Labud says.

Ethical OS doesn’t just deal with the negative impacts, however; it can equally highlight the positive benefits of a technology.​

“Many companies are becoming software companies and don’t even realize it,” says Patrick Labud, referring to the merging of business and IT strategy. In other words, the technology within the company is becoming relevant to the business, while the actual products are becoming a minor matter.

“Insurance companies are now IT companies,” says Labud, “and even car manufacturers like VW are going through such a transformation.” The term Strategy Engineered is used to describe this development. Business and IT are being merged so that they no longer function as two separate areas.

To be sure, business strategy has always had an impact on IT strategy and vice versa. But the fact that software development can suddenly become the core business is new. If IT and business strategy are harmoniously interwoven in the sense of strategy engineered, products or services can be developed and offered competitively.

In the Tools category of the Technica Radar, Blazor is listed as an up-and-comer. Launched back in 2018, the Microsoft-based solution has become a popular tool for rendering web applications alongside JavaScript-based frameworks (such as Angular or React) and is expected to continue to gain traction

Especially in teams that are heavily in the .NET ecosystem and have no experience in the JavaScript ecosystem, using Blazor is a valid option, Labud concludes.

Since Dall-E 2 or Stable Diffusion, creative image creations with AI are also known to a broader audience. Such approaches also exist in software development. In addition to Microsoft (GitHub Copilot) and Amazon (CodeWhisperer), there are also products like Tabnine or Captain Stack that offer an AI pair programmer solution.

Community reactions to these have been very mixed. Software development using AI can be an opportunity to learn about and build on alternative and possibly higher performing code. It also offers the potential to write non-business-relevant code faster.

However, the danger is that – based on the training set of the model – code with hacks will be generated. AI tools should therefore not be used without engineering practices such as TDD.