Unqork Extends Automated No-Code SDLC Platform

Unqork today announced it has extended a no-code platform for managing the software development life cycle (SDLC) to include the ability to automatically document changes to application programming interfaces (APIs) and data models in addition to adding a point-in-time rollback capability.

Ken Gavranovic, head of strategy and engineering for Unqork, said Unqork 2021.5 also adds a range of dashboards for monitoring application dependencies, service logs, revisions, logs and metrics.

Finally, Unqork is adding tools to analyze, test and debug configurations along with enabling workflows to subscribe to events and adding a search capability for release candidates.

Unqork is designed to present IT teams with a set of visual tools through which they can manage SDLC processes without having to build and maintain a platform made up of disparate offerings that they need to then integrate, said Gavranovic. The goal is to reduce the overall size of the team required to maintain an application development environment to enable organizations to allocate more time and resources to building applications, he added.

The auto documentation for APIs is being added at a time when IT organizations are starting to employ a larger number of APIs as they transition toward building and deploying microservices-based applications. In addition to making it easier to reuse APIs, Unqork also now makes sure documentation for those APIs is always current, said Gavranovic.

At the same time, Unqork is now providing a means to automatically document changes to data models based on a data store that is integrated in the platform, noted Gavranovic. That capability enables organizations to implicitly add governance capabilities to workflows with a minimal amount of friction.

As organizations look to accelerate the rate at which applications are being developed to enable multiple digital business transformation initiatives, Gavranovic said more of them are starting to realize their existing processes are too complex and cumbersome to achieve that goal. Unqork is based on a data store that is shared by all the modules that make up the platform, which, in addition to enabling reusability, makes Unqork easier to deploy and manage, added Gavranovic.

In addition, Gavranovic also noted that, over time, complex processes only increase the overall burnout rate of the development team. It’s hard enough to hire and retain developers today without requiring them to navigate a complex application development environment, he added. Eventually, the best talent will migrate to organizations that make it as easy for them to write code as possible, said Gavranovic.

It’s not clear to what degree IT organizations will be revisiting the way they build software in the months ahead but as more of them realize how dependent the business now is on the timely delivery of software it’s only a matter of time before pressure to automate as much of the software development process as possible starts to mount. The cost of replacing an application development environment is, of course, not insubstantial. However, continuing to do the same thing with the expectation of producing a different result is, by definition, insanity.