Requirements Virtualization Platform

For many years, IT has successfully virtualized the hosting of applications from physical infrastructure, decoupling the implementation of the application from the technology it runs on.

Requirements Virtualization goes deeper into the application itself. It is the process of using requirements configuration data to decouple the user experience (UX) and associated Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) functionality from the application.

A small percentage (<10%) of the code in a software application performs workflow automation on stored records or transfers them between applications. For the past couple of decades, we have been moving this code to microservices.

Most of the code (>90%) in software applications deals with creating data on a screen, pushing it into a database as a record, retrieving/editing the record, occasionally deleting obsolete records. This large UX and CRUD codebase is why we build functionality as separate applications.

If we virtualize the UX and CRUD functionality, then we eliminate this large codebase and remove the need to build applications.

At the individual application level, we achieve three key benefits:

1. Our non-technical team members (e.g., Citizen Developers and Business Analysts) can configure the functional requirements directly in trellispark which reduces effort, cost, risk, and time to value.
2. Our application functionality is no longer dependent on an implementation technology which means that it doesn’t need to be rebuilt when the technology is modernized.
3. Our IT team can focus their efforts on higher value work, such as workflow automation, machine learning / AI, and data analytics.

A recent article in Forbes noted that the average organization wastes between 23% – 42% of their development time on technical debt. This can balloon into millions of dollars for large enterprises. In fact, one bank in the study estimates their technical debt to cost them over $2 billion.

Over 90% of the technical debt in operational software applications arises from two main sources:

1. Changes to business needs that impact user experience and workflow – Most of this code no longer exists after virtualizing requirements
2. Aging technology that requires applications to be modernized or replaced – Virtualizing requirements breaks the dependency on technology

As enterprises grow, the number of applications, data silos, and technologies increases creating a complex, fragile, vulnerable, and ultimately unsustainable enterprise application architecture.

By virtualizing requirements as configuration data, we reduce the need to create and maintain applications which means that over time we can systematically eliminate them from our enterprise architecture.

As we remove applications, we can consolidate data silos and data flows. This simplifies our enterprise application architecture, eliminates redundant technologies, and improves the overall security.

Requirements virtualization works best with forms-based business applications. Consider virtualizing requirements to replace an application when it is:

• Core to your business and the requirements are frequently changing
• A new business functionality that needs sophisticated customization
• An existing custom forms-based application that:
  • Needs to be modernized
  • Has lots of outstanding changes and technical debt
  • Needs significant data model changes
  • Is difficult to sustain/support
  • Needs to be flexible and frequently modified
  • Has vulnerable data silos or data flows
• A legacy system that has high operational costs