In this blog post, we will delve into the diverse building blocks available on Azion’s Edge Computing Platform. Our goal is to guide developers through an effective method to fast-track application creation. By leveraging the low-code approach with Azion’s tools, developers will be able to focus more on valuable business logic development rather than writing extensive amounts of code. This will save developers’ time, augment their productivity, and crucially, enable them to meet business objectives more efficiently.
Azion’s Building Blocks for Low-Code Applications
Templates
Templates are ready-made project repositories, complete with a pre-established structure that can be reused and personalized as needed, and are a crucial component of the low-code approach on Azion’s platform. They serve as ready-made blocks that can be seamlessly integrated into an edge application, helping you simplify, automate, and execute processes that would traditionally demand extensive manual configuration and take up valuable time. The flexibility to customize templates allows you to adapt their functionality to suit your unique application requirements, reducing the amount of code you need to write.
To assist developers in maximizing the benefits of a low-code approach, Azion has made a range of ingenious templates available, such as the ChatGPT Plugin, WordPress InstaCreator, and Qstash EdgeFunction Scheduler. These templates not only streamline and automate numerous development tasks but also ensure optimal application performance.
For instance, the WordPress InstaCreator automates the WordPress setup process, while the Qstash EdgeFunction Scheduler is able to automate repetitive processes. The resultant application or website boasts superior performance and enhanced user experience, thanks to these intelligent, time-saving templates.
Marketplace Features
The Azion Marketplace is a dynamic digital catalog that empowers users to easily locate, test, and deploy edge-enabled software, and it’s also where third parties or ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) can publish their own software to be integrated into Azion’s platform. Focused on providing a wide range of solutions that seamlessly integrate with the Azion Edge Computing Platform, our Marketplace is designed to push the boundaries of what’s achievable with edge computing.
The Azion Marketplace offers complete features and functionality, thus becoming an invaluable resource for adopting a low-code approach on the Azion platform. This means that developers have full access to a suite of ready-to-use solutions that can help compose and customize their applications in a more efficient manner. With the decreased need for manual intervention, these ready-to-use solutions empower developers to focus more on high-value tasks, consequently improving productivity.
The Azion Marketplace houses a wide array of innovative solutions, including but not limited to face detection, ID match, recaptcha, and A/B testing, which can all be implemented into new applications within few minutes.
This drastically reduces time-to-market, and improves the overall development experience by offering the tools necessary to optimize application performance, reliability, and security without having to build everything from scratch. Thus, the Azion Marketplace not only simplifies the creation of sophisticated applications, but also accelerates growth in the competitive digital space.
ChatGPT Code Assistant
As we have demonstrated, Azion offers a large selection of components that are ready for reuse and implementation. But frequently, it’s crucial to code certain parts of the solution to tailor it to specific business rules. In these situations, the ChatGPT Code Assistant, which is integrated into Azion’s Code Editor, proves to be an incredibly useful tool.
The integration of AI into software development, particularly with the advent of ChatGPT and other chat bots, dramatically simplifies and boosts the development process, which in turn underscores the merits of the low-code approach.
The integration into Azion’s Code Editor is effortless: just by creating an API Key and an Organization ID on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, developers get access to an advanced, AI-powered tool. With features like Code Explanation, Code Generation, and Code Refactor, developers can code quicker and more intelligently, aligning perfectly with the low-code philosophy that prioritizes efficient and quick turnaround in creating robust applications.
Rules Engine
The Azion Rules Engine was designed to allow you to apply conditional execution logic with little to no code at all. In other words, you can create behaviors based on criteria that best suit your business with a few clicks, in minutes. And since those rules are all implemented on Azion’s Edge Locations, your rules are closer to the end users, improving the performance and throughput of your application, boosting your business and significantly improving your users’ experience.
Amongst other advantages, the Azion Rules Engine allows you to:
- Improve the latency and performance of your applications by setting up logic to optimize delivery closer to the end user;
- Activate cookie forwarding, header handling, cache control, rewrite, redirect, and many other features directly at the edge;
- Use multiple complex criteria capable of considering geolocation, headers, and other HTTP fields, with the power of regular expressions and boolean logic (AND/OR);
- Use a specific behavior to segment the delivery of large objects into 1MB slices, if supported by the origin. In this way, you enable the delivery of certain content to the user even before it is fully received from the origin by the edge location.
Migrating to the Edge with a Low Coding Effort Using WebAssembly
Embracing the low-code approach extends beyond the realm of creating new applications from scratch. With Azion’s Edge Computing Platform, the benefits of the low-code methodology can be applied to the migration process of legacy or cloud-based applications as well. This flexibility proves invaluable, allowing developers to bring existing applications to the edge with minimal coding efforts and time investments, enhancing speed and operational efficiency.
One of the secrets behind this speedy and seamless migration is Azion’s native support for WebAssembly in our Edge Application solution. WebAssembly is a compact, low-level language designed for modern web browsers. This means that there is a path to migrate applications written in various languages to the edge simply by compiling them into WebAssembly, entirely bypassing the traditional, time-consuming process of rewriting the entire application code. This approach streamlines the migration process and facilitates a smooth transition to the Edge, embodying the true essence of low-code development.
Reduced Time-To-Market and Improved Application Development Process at the Edge
The low-code approach, embodied by Azion’s Edge Computing Platform, is a real game-changer when it comes to expediting and streamlining the process of application creation and migration.
By leveraging the multiple tools offered by Azion’s Platform and the integration of AI with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, developers can experience a remarkable increase in productivity and efficiency. The available templates further enhance application performance and the overall user experience by automating tasks and optimizing vital processes.
Ultimately, Azion’s Platform is essential for developers looking to meet the demand for agile, high-performing applications in a world where digital is key. If you want to embrace the era of low-code to take application development to the next level, talk to one of our experts today or sign-up for a free account.
