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Is it Time to Transition to JAMStack?

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Jamstack (JAMstack), is one of the most popular (and rapidly growing) tools for app and website creation. A unique ecosystem of functionality, Jamstack promises developers the support they need to create powerful websites and progressive applications. 

For a while, Jamstack was mostly written off as just another buzzword in the developer space. However, today, it’s growing to become a powerful investment for many business leaders. Even big companies are getting involved, like Cloudflare, with Cloudflare pages, and Microsoft with Azure Static Web Apps. Elsewhere, we’ve seen brands like Shopify, PayPal, and Nike getting involved too.

So, what exactly is Jamstack, and is it time you transitioned over? Let’s find out…

What is Jamstack?

Jamstack, otherwise known as “JAMstack,” is the name of a developer ecosystem made up of JavaScript, APIs, and Markup (hence: JAM). The solution is a web development architecture allowing developers to access static website benefits, such as higher security and better performance, while still unlocking dynamic database-oriented CMS.

The Jamstack solution allows companies and developers to build a dynamic website where real assets are pre-rendered static files in a CDN. The dynamic environment runs on JavaScript client-side, through serverless functions. 

For a better insight, let’s compare Jamstack to the LAMP stack development strategy, which originated from the four open-source components many developers used to build sites: Linux, Apache HTTP, MySQL, and PHP.

With LAMP, each user request for a page forces the server to query a database — unless the page is cached — and combine the result with page markup data and plugins. Jamstack websites serve pre-built optimized assets and markup solutions quickly because the files are already compiled on a CDN. There’s no need to query the database. 

Jamstack workflows dramatically reduce cumbersome issues with development and excess maintenance, making them highly appealing to developers. 

What Are the Benefits of Jamstack?

Jamstack won’t be the ideal development tool for everyone, but it has a lot of benefits to offer. By fetching HTML from a CDN, the system doesn’t have to wait for HTML to be combined and returned to clients. The solution also provides an improved developer experience with static methods. 

Using Jamstack, developers can build fantastic static files ready to serve by request, hosted on a global CDN. Some of the biggest benefits of Jamstack include:

  • Performance: Because you’re serving pre-built static files from a CDN directly, you’ll achieve much faster loading times, unmatched by typical server-side rendering options. Because you’re serving static files, you’re also better equipped to handle any traffic spikes you might encounter, with minimal slowdown.
  • User experience: Better website performance significantly improves user experience and website traffic, as well as SEO efforts. User experience has always been a critical factor in ensuring the success of a website, and it’s essential to keeping your customers around for as long as possible. Websites optimized for performance will always delight users. 
  • Security: With Jamstack, there are no servers or databases to worry about. You use third-party solutions to handle these issues for you. The architecture of Jamstack means the back and front end of your development processes are decoupled, and you can rely on APIs to run server-side processes easily. Jamstack also comes with security benefits other approaches can lack. Clear separation of services is essential here. 
  • Hosting and scaling: Scaling and hosting can often be problematic in the development world, but because you’re serving files from a CDN, you’re less likely to encounter issues. CDNs are almost infinitely scalable, so you get excellent extensibility built into your development environment. CDN hosting for static files is also cheaper than traditional hosting, so you can keep costs low. 
  • Maintenance: Jamstack makes it easy to push your front end to the edge rather than managing infrastructure directly. Ditching plugins, databases, and other hosting services can help you to save more time and money on a significant scale. 
  • Developer experience: From a developer perspective, there are tons of benefits from Jamstack. You get the ease of a Github, CI/CD, CDN flow, and auto previews with simple rollback to reduce the need for backups. Local developer environments and the ability to run and debug cloud functions locally are all fantastic.

Does Jamstack Have any Limitations?

In a lot of ways, Jamstack is an innovative and revolutionary solution for development. It can help you to create a far more engaging website and present your company in an incredible way. Of course, that doesn’t mean there are no limitations to be aware of. 

Jamstack is developer-friendly, for instance, but it’s not beginner-friendly. You will need at least some knowledge of web development to start unlocking the benefits. You’ll need to understand things like Vue or React, but you should develop a tool anyone can use with a bit of work.

There’s also a handful of things you can’t pre-generate, like user-specific and real-time data. So, this means you may not be able to use Jamstack effectively on projects requiring these kinds of data. Building an analytics dashboard, for instance, probably isn’t a good idea with Jamstack. Other issues for some developers may include:

  • API complexity: It can be overwhelming to try and find the right solution for your needs among so many different options. Of course, this could also be something you’d say about the WordPress ecosystem and its huge variety of plugins. An API usually won’t break your production website, at least. 
  • Long building processes: If you have a large number of pages, there’s more likely to be an extensive building process to think about. Whenever you make a change to a single page, even a little one, you’ll need to rebuild your entire website. This is a problem if you run into a website with thousands of pages. There are solutions to this problem available, however.
  • Handling dynamics: Going with Jamstack doesn’t mean abandoning your backend. An important part of the approach is accessing serverless functions, which are becoming more effective over time. These serverless functions can also be executed on the edge. The backend parts of your website will require regular maintenance as they scale.

Best Jamstack Tools to Check Out

Now you know the basics of Jamstack, let’s look at some of the tools you can use to design an incredible website or application within the Jamstack environment. 

The Git Tool Landscape

There are tons of tools within the Git ecosystem common among Jamstack developers. Starting with Git itself. Git represents a powerful free, and open-sourced distributed version control system. With this solution, companies can handle everything from small to enterprise-level projects with efficiency and speed. The solution is extremely easy to use and learn, and outclasses a range of tools like Perforce, ClearCase and Subversion. 

GitHub Pages and GitLab pages are two hosting services for Git repositories with built-in services to host static pages from out of your codebase. This makes the two solutions fantastic for when you’re building a Jamstack website. You can access the functionality for free too. 

GitLab gives you a comprehensive DevOps platform to work with, where you can enjoy a comprehensive CI/CD toolchain out of the box. The comprehensive solution, delivered as a single application, changes the way security, development, and Ops teams integrate and collaborate. Gitlab helps to accelerate software delivery on a massive scale.

AWS Amplify

AWS Amplify, created by Amazon Web Services, is a development platform packed full of useful features for people in the Jamstack environment. The Amplify offering aims to reduce the complexities associated with Amazon Web Services for mobile and web deployment. You get 12 months of hosting for free with new accounts, and you get Storage with Amplify too. 

The Amazon Amplify solution dramatically improves the regular AWS workflow, especially if you’re just a novice user. There’s a huge documentation hub to help you too, which is way more convenient than Amazon’s usual documentation solutions. Amplify is still accessed from a somewhat bloated console, however. 

With AWS Amplify, companies can access features like a comprehensive data store to sync data between the cloud and websites. There’s also easy-to-use interface access across all different categories of cloud operations. The service works well with a range of JavaScript central tools. 

Netlify

Netlify is a pioneering solution in the Jamstack environment, allowing users to go dynamic with their websites and applications on their own terms. You can access a range of add-ons and integration, access your favorite tools, and make your own. The flexible environment enables developers to run websites on a multi-cloud infrastructure designed for speed and scale automation. 

Built to be entirely secure from the ground up, Netlify makes it easy to build a site that’s custom-made for performance and deployed directly. You don’t need to worry about managing, scaling and patching web services, which means you can more quickly implement your Jamstack architecture. 

Unlike other large legacy apps, Jamstack projects are neatly separate from your front-end pages and UI from the backend databases and apps with Netlify. Using this service, the entire front-end can be pre-built with highly optimized static assets and pages, and developers can deliver new web projects faster than ever before.

Next.JS

Inspired by the functionality of PHP, Next.JS is a solution for pre-rendered JavaScript modules. The solution allows developers to easily export the components of their apps and perform individual tests to determine how each element works. You can also access a wide range of components and modules from NPM. The Next offering allows developers to save time, removing the need to use webpack bundles and transform with compilers. 

The full solution is extremely intuitive, ensuring developers can create solutions quickly. What’s more, the technology you build will allow you to load only the bundle needed from your JavaScript workflow, rather than all the JavaScript at once. Pre-fetching, one of the features of Next.JS, also picks up where standard code-splitting leaves off, allowing for optimized bundles of code to load seamlessly. 

Next.JS also supports hot-module replacement. This means instead of reloading an entire application when you change the code, you only recreate the modules you’ve altered.

Angular

Probably the most widely-recognized of all the JavaScript frameworks, Angular, designed by Google engineers, appeared first in 2012, offering developers a new way to create dynamic pages. Before this technology, there were other opportunities for creating dynamic pages, but they were nowhere near as convenient or speedy. 

Angular is probably one of the most essential tools companies can use when building a Jamstack website or environment. The front-end web development tool attracts developers from all over the world. Every version is packed with features and constantly upgraded to ensure you can generate the best results. 

Angular extends HTML file functionality with powerful directives, and it requires very little effort to enable these directives too. All you do is add the ng- prefix to your HTML attributes and you’re ready to go. Angular also allows developers to create widgets leveraging editable data with two-way binding. This means developers don’t have to write code that syncs constantly between the model and view. 

With Angular, developers also get access to things like virtual scrolling, which can help with displaying large lists of elements performantly, rendering on the items that fit on the screen to reduce loading times. 

React

Another must-have tool in the JavaScript world for Jamstack, the React solution was launched first in 2013, and has won thousands of customers across the globe thanks to fantastic functionality. Today, the full landscape is maintained by Facebook, along with all the members of the standard developer community. The solution is used by some of the biggest giants in the tech industry, like Netflix, PayPal, and Apple. 

React is a true pioneer in the Jamstack ecosystem, with its sensational approach to simple and straightforward solutions for JavaScript management. You’ll be able to access batched and virtual DOM updates, which makes it easier to unlock components quickly, and write your components the way you see them. There’s also the added benefit that React is compatible with a lot of tools. 

You can build a comprehensive app or website with the help of React, and you’ll have no trouble accessing some of the top features, particularly with plenty of support available from the React community. 

Gatsby

Created from the ground up to improve user experience on a comprehensive level, Gatsby is a static site generator with heavy focus on things like SEO, performance, and accessibility. The solution offers plenty of out-of-the-box features to help developers deliver the most immersive solution for their users, without unnecessary complexity. 

Gatsby users pre-configuration to develop static websites giving developers faster loading pages, stronger code splitting, and server-side rendering. You can also access features like data prefetching, asset optimization, and quick image loading. Gatsby boasts excellent documentation and starter packs to help you get your site up and running more quickly.

The GraphQL data layer of Gatsby also means the system can collect your data from anywhere, including your CMS, JSON, Markdown, and APIs. More than just your standard site generator, this is a tool built specifically with performance in mind. 

Agility CMS

Developing an effective Jamstack website means having access to the right CMS technology. Agility CMS wasn’t the first CMS solution to support Jamstack, but it is one of the better-known options. As one of the first headless CMS solutions to hit the market, the company has quickly captured the attention of a huge range of developers worldwide.

Agility CMS is a Jamstack pioneer, capable of helping developers to build a foundation for any online ecosystem. The technology is an API-first CMS with support for REST APIs, so developers can connect all the third-party apps and front-end frameworks they like.

The technology also gives developers the freedom to code their solutions their way. You don’t have to follow a specific set of guidelines for how content is created, but templates are available to fast-track development. Agility CMS also hosts and abstracts your database, so you don’t have to worry about connection strings, backups, and maintenance. 

With a strong content architecture to help companies manage digital content and a partnership with Gatsby, Agility is ideal for Jamstack development strategies. 

Building Your Jamstack Website

The Jamstack solution is more than just a buzzword in today’s development world. This unique approach to building incredible development experiences delivers an excellent advantage to both developers and their end-users. Fast, scalable, and full of solutions for customization, Jamstack is a powerful way to bring websites to life with simplicity and speed. 

Every day, more companies take advantage of the Jamstack environment, and we’re constantly seeing a wide selection of new tools, APIs and offerings emerging to help enhance the Jamstack landscape too. This environment is definitely worth consideration for any developer looking to significantly speed up their development strategy.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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Should Perl Die Gracefully?

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Cover: Should Perl Die Gracefully?

A comment on the Medium version of last week’s article got to me:

I wish they’d just leave Perl static. Then we wouldn’t have to waste money retesting legacy Perl apps on the newest version every couple of years, in case new features we don’t want breaks code that’s been unchanged for years. […] Sometimes things should just be left to die gracefully.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Is It Time to Reset HTML?

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HTML is one of the foundational building blocks of the Web. But just as web design best practices and techniques change over time, so does the code we use. As HTML evolves, some of its older markup has been deprecated while other parts have been repurposed.

Does that create more problems for us, though? Would we be better off starting over so we can make sure we’re all working from the same language rather than trying to edit out the bits we don’t want or need?

Problems With Holding Onto Legacy HTML

Let’s take a look at what happens when we amend the rules of HTML over time and how it impacts the Web:

1. It’s Risky to Leave Deprecated HTML Behind

Whether certain features have become outdated and need to go, or browsers have stopped supporting certain tags altogether, deprecated code eventually becomes a problem.

You’ll find a long list of deprecated HTML on the HTML.com website:

For many of these, HTML tags and attributes have been replaced by more efficient CSS styling. There are also examples of HTML deprecation because the features have become outdated (like frames).

Yet, there are still websites out there that contain deprecated HTML.

In some cases, the HTML sits silently on the other side of the website. If there’s enough of this errant code hanging around, though, those extra characters and directives could slow down your server’s processing time and render pages more slowly than usual.

In other cases, the HTML breaks features on the front-end of a website. Take, for instance, this warning from Mozilla regarding the <nobr> tag:

Using deprecated code can create inconsistent and poor experiences on the front-end. And when all browsers finally get on board and decide not to support an HTML tag anymore, all visitors will be left with a broken UI.

So, while it’s great that HTML5 has deprecated legacy HTML that’s no longer useful or necessary, that’s not to stop everyone from using it or leaving it behind on older websites. 

2. Legacy Code Focuses on Style; Not Semantics

As I mentioned, a lot of deprecated HTML has been phased out and replaced by CSS styling. And that’s a good thing.

Let me give you a simple example of this…

My favorite book is <i>The Stand</i> by Stephen King. The first time I read it, I didn’t sleep for <i>three days</i>. Thankfully, when I revisit it every year, I have fewer nightmares and can more greatly appreciate the storytelling aspect of it.

In the above paragraph, I’ve used the <i> tag to italicize several words.

In the early days of HTML,<i> stood for “italics” (the way<b> stood for “bold”). With HTML5, however,<i> will still render as italics, but its semantic meaning isn’t as broad. It’s been repurposed to indicate a stylistic change, which is important for things like book and film names, foreign words, and so on. To express emphasis, we use the <em> tag instead. 

Keeping the legacy <i> and <b> tags can lead to issues, though. 

In the statement above, I’ve italicized the name of the book (The Stand) as well as the number of sleepless nights I had (three days) with<i>. Whether the designer decides today, tomorrow or ten months down the road that they want to change the way literary or cinematic references are styled, my choice of HTML will stand in their way.

Because all of my italic text is indicated by <i>, styles can’t universally be applied to specific content (like book references). Instead, the designer would have to go through and clean up my code so that it looks like this:

My favorite book is <i>The Stand</i> by Stephen King. The first time I read it, I didn’t sleep for <em>three days</em>. Thankfully, when I inevitably revisit it every year, I have fewer nightmares and can more greatly appreciate the storytelling aspect of it.

This would then allow the semantically italicized content to remain intact while the designer or developer adjusts the styles of the book title here and across the site. (Though, really, the first italicized phrase should be surrounded by <cite> as it would be more semantically accurate.)

While it’s great that we’ve created guidelines for using legacy HTML today, keeping old code around can confuse writers, designers, and others who are familiar with the previous way of formatting content. By resetting HTML, throwing out old styles, and creating one language we use consistently across the web, we won’t create more work for ourselves later on.

3. Deprecated Code Hinders Accessibility

Another big reason why repurposed and deprecated HTML is a problem is because of accessibility.

For starters, when you leave deprecated and unsupported code behind, it’s likely to cause issues for screen readers, search engines, and browsers that use HTML for clues about the content.

Header tags (e.g.<h1>, <h2>, <h3>), for instance, aren’t just used to visibly break up large chunks of text. Header tags and, more specifically their hierarchy, present important information about the relationship between subjects on a page — and this is the kind of thing that screen readers and search engines pick up on.

That’s why we need to be very careful about the code we leave behind the scenes, even if readers on the front end can’t visibly see it. Let’s look at an example of how this can affect accessibility:

Is there an <i>à la carte</i> menu or is it just <i>prix fixe</i> tonight?

If a screen reader were to read over this sentence, the French phrases would be said with the same emphasis as any other italicized words on the page.

This is why HTML5 encourages semantic coding instead of purely stylistic.

The proper way to write HTML in the line above would be:

Is there an <i lang="fr">à la carte</i> menu or is it just <i lang="fr">prix fixe</i> tonight?

There are two reasons to do this:

  1. To indicate to screen readers that there’s a language change.
  2. To make it easier for designers or developers to create a custom style for foreign phrases.

Semantic coding is essential for designers that work on multilingual websites.

As the World Wide Web Consortium explains, languages like Japanese don’t use italicization or bolding for emphasis — at least not the way English speakers do.

So, to properly translate a page from English, a Japanese designer would need to remove the italics or bolding and add surrounding brackets to the words. However, if everything is coded with <i> and <b>, or there’s a mix of <i> and <em> and<b> and <strong>, it’s going to be really difficult to Find-and-Replace the correct HTML with ease.

So, if accessibility or internationalization are concerns for you at all, getting clear on the HTML you write with is going to be really important.

Wrap-Up

The fact of the matter is, it requires a lot of work to have the rules of HTML rewritten. So while it would be great to reset HTML, I don’t know that it’s all that practical.

All we can really do is stay abreast of what’s happening with the language, edit out legacy code from our websites the second it becomes deprecated, and always use tags and attributes that are supported. By playing around with deprecated or repurposed code, we only put the website visitors’ experience in jeopardy, so it’s best to take the time to clear out the old any chance we get.

If we can all get on the same page about this, problematic legacy HTML will eventually disappear from our websites and memories.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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3 Effective Ways To Improve Your Site’s Carbon Footprint

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At the dawn of the web-era, there was much focus on how environmentally friendly websites were: we’d chop down fewer trees, ship fewer products, and travel less for business.

And because the web was small, any negative impact it had was relatively small. But the Internet’s no longer small, and neither is the impact it has on the environment. The average website uses 211,000g of CO2 per year, watching a video online outputs an estimated 0.2g of CO2 per second, and a single email can cost 50g of CO2.

In the next four years, the tech industry as a whole may use up to 20% of the world’s electricity and be responsible for 5.5% of global CO2 emissions.

The good news is that because websites are viewed many times, even small improvements can multiply into real change.

1. Reduce Energy Consumption

Through electricity use, the Internet generates around the same CO2 as most major countries. That carbon comes from two sources: the devices we use to access the Internet and the servers that host our data.

Computers heat up, and when they heat up, they slow down. Servers are especially vulnerable and use extraordinary amounts of energy to keep cool and functional, which is why Microsoft keeps throwing servers into the sea.

Make It Faster

The faster your site, the less data is used to serve it, and the less carbon it’s outputting; it’s that simple.

Reduce the Number of Resources Used

Everything you load on your site has an impact. You might think that a tiny PNG is too small to really impact your carbon footprint, but over thousands of page loads, its impact is multiplied. Anything you can do to reduce the number of actual files requested will reduce your carbon output. You can use sites like Ecograder to estimate your own site’s CO2 output.

Optimize Images

If there’s one thing you can do to reduce the size of your site, the amount of data that needs to be sent over the Internet to serve your site, and the resulting speed, it’s optimizing your images.

Nothing reduces a site’s footprint like optimizing images. It’s easy and free to reduce the size of JPGs and PNGs with a service like TinyPNG. Offer WebP to any browser that will accept them; it will boost your Lighthouse score and improve your CO2 usage.

Lazy Load Images

Lazy loading images means images are loaded as they are required; images at the top of a page always load, images further down only load when the user scrolls to them; if the user doesn’t scroll to the bottom of the page, they don’t load, saving you CO2.

Reduce The Amount Of JavaScript You Use

Yes, JavaScript is awesome. Yes, it can be hugely beneficial to UX. And yes, it munches on energy like it’s candy.

When a web page loads, it’s done, the total cost is in. If JavaScript keeps running in the background, redrawing the screen based on user interaction — as is the case with a parallax site — the web page keeps using up energy on the device.

Choose a Sustainable Hosting Company

You can reduce the power needs of a site, but you can’t eliminate them. One simple step is to opt for a hosting company that gets its electricity from sustainable sources such as wind power or solar.

Low←Tech Magazine is powered by a server that runs on solar energy and carries a warning that it may go offline. But it’s possible to host both reliably and sustainably. Many web hosts outsource their actual server management, so they have no control over how those servers are powered, but there are plenty of exceptions that guarantee green web hosting. Google Cloud aims to be the cleanest in the cloud industry. For green web hosting, I always recommend the all-round superb Kualo.

2. Be Inclusive

One of the biggest issues with the EV (Electric Vehicle) movement is that we’re replacing cars earlier than we normally would in a rush to move to “clean” driving.

A new EV certainly outputs less than a gas-powered vehicle when driven the same distance. Combine increased use — because owners think they are driving cleanly — with the fact that a new EV has to be manufactured, the minerals for batteries have to be mined (in horrific conditions), and it then needs to be shipped to you, and EVs are not as friendly as they appear — so go ahead, buy that vintage Porsche it’s probably better for the environment than a Tesla.

Support Legacy Devices

The same issue that applies to cars applies to devices. Every time we rush ahead to support the latest iPhone, we leave older generations behind. A device can and should last longer than two years.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t embrace modern web standards. Technologies like CSS Grid are excellent at reducing markup size and speeding up sites. CSS Grid has been well supported for over four years, and even “legacy” devices can handle it. If you can keep a phone for an extra six months, the environmental cost of that phone is reduced by 20%.

3. Help Users Make Good Choices

More and more people are trying to make good choices. We’re eating a healthier, balanced diet. We’re recycling clothes. We’re traveling by bike, and on foot, instead of by car. People want to do the right thing, and they seek out companies that aid them.

Improve Navigation

Anything that you can do to make your content more findable will mean fewer page loads and therefore consume fewer resources.

By improving your information architecture, improving your search accuracy, and improving on-page signposts like bread crumbs and link text, you help users find content faster.

Feelgood Feedback

When the environmental impact of a user’s actions are quantifiable, let them know. Users who care will appreciate it, and users who don’t will ignore it.

Raileurope.com adds a note to any quotation letting you know how much carbon you’ve saved by traveling by train instead of flying.

Don’t Remove the Shipping Rate

Many ecommerce sites offer free shipping, especially above a certain order value; it’s a good way to encourage higher sales. But absorbing the shipping cost implies that there is no shipping. By highlighting the shipping costs, even if they’re not passed on to the customer, you remind them that there is an environmental cost and a financial cost.

You can absorb the shipping rate without implying there is no cost by adding the shipping and then explicitly deducting it as a discount.

Sustainable Web Design Is Good For Business

The fundamentals of good web design are the fundamentals of sustainable web design.

Make it fast and usable, and you’ll also be making it energy efficient. Make it inclusive, and you’ll help the industry slow the ever-growing tendency to consume. Make it transparent, and you’ll help your users make good choices of their own. All of these things are not only good for the environment, but they also result in improved UX and SEO.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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App Modernization + Hybrid Cloud Architectures With Apache Kafka [Video]

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Hybrid cloud architectures are the new black for most companies. A cloud-first is obvious for many, but legacy infrastructure must be maintained, integrated, and (maybe) replaced over time. Event Streaming with the Apache Kafka ecosystem is a perfect technology for building hybrid replication in real-time at scale.

App Modernization and Streaming Replication With Apache Kafka at Bayer

Most enterprises require a reliable and scalable integration between legacy systems such as IBM Mainframe, Oracle, SAP ERP, and modern cloud-native applications like Snowflake, MongoDB Atlas, or AWS Lambda.

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Il est temps de mettre votre ERP à niveau ? Guide pour le remplacement de votre ancien ERP

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Etes-vous satisfait de votre système ERP ? Est-il temps de le mettre à niveau ? Vous avez peut-être écouté les témoignages de vos pairs quant à leur passage à des ERP modernes. Ou peut-être ressentez-vous le besoin de mettre en place de nouveaux processus pour rester compétitif et répondre aux attentes de vos clients, nouveaux processus que votre système actuel ne peut proposer. Quoi qu’il en soit, il est toujours bon d’évaluer en continu les performances du système, d’identifier les axes d’amélioration et d’anticiper les problèmes qui pourraient subvenir.

Le système ERP parfait existe-t-il ?

La réponse courte est « non ». Et même si le système parfait existait pour vos besoins spécifiques à un moment donné, ces besoins évoluent en permanence. Il faut donc garder le contrôle, évaluer dans quelle mesure votre ERP répond à vos besoins actuels et identifier les tendances qui pourraient entraîner des problèmes.

Il est en vogue de qualifier les systèmes installés de « legacy ERP ». Ce qui suggère une ancienne technologie et des systèmes obsolètes. C’est injuste car de nombreux systèmes installés sont régulièrement entretenus, mis à niveau et pleinement capables d’évoluer, de s’adapter, aux nouveaux besoins.

Cela dit, les mises à niveau des ERP sont facultatives, bien que fortement encouragées par les fournisseurs. Il est important de se tenir au courant des corrections et des améliorations disponibles. En cas de problèmes ou tendances défavorables, assurez-vous que votre système dispose de toutes les mises à jour et de la dernière version. Regardez ensuite si votre fournisseur propose des modules complémentaires ou des améliorations qui pourraient remédier aux lacunes constatées. Déterminez ce qu’il faudrait pour mettre en œuvre ces correctifs, en termes d’argent et d’efforts, et utilisez ces informations pour évaluer le coût du maintien de votre solution actuelle.

Votre logiciel ERP vous laisse-t-il tomber ?

En résumé, gardez votre système ERP à jour. Surveillez aussi de près ses performances. Les besoins, les vôtres comme ceux de vos clients, vont évoluer. Vous devez donc vous assurer que votre système ERP peut y répondre.

L’auto-évaluation mentionnée ci-dessus peut vous aider à identifier les défaillances et les sujets de préoccupation, par exemple :

  • Votre système est incapable de répondre aux nouveaux besoins ou limite les nouvelles initiatives.
  • Il ne prend pas en charge les nouvelles technologies et normes, ou seulement avec difficulté, à coût élevé et avec des retards. Le fournisseur est lent à intégrer de nouveaux éléments et nouvelles fonctionnalités.
  • Les fonctions sont difficiles à maîtriser et à utiliser, et nuisent à l’efficacité au lieu de la favoriser.
  • Le temps de réponse est excessivement lent. Le stockage et la récupération de l’information sont inadéquats, lourds ou ne répondent tout simplement pas aux besoins actuels en constante expansion.
  • Le système est coûteux et difficile à maintenir et à gérer, et ne bénéficie pas d’un soutien adéquat de la part de votre fournisseur.
  • Si votre système est vraiment un ancien ERP dont l’assistance du fournisseur s’amenuise, ou dont l’assistance technique se réduit, les programmeurs et analystes compétents deviendront plus chers et plus difficiles à trouver à mesure que le système deviendra plus obsolète et moins fiable.

C’est le genre de problèmes qui peuvent évoluer lentement et passer inaperçus pendant longtemps. Puis, soudain, il devient évident que les lacunes du système causent de graves problèmes ​- et qu’il faut faire quelque chose.

Combien dépensez-vous pour votre ERP ?

De nombreuses entreprises sont surprises lorsqu’elles font l’analyse et découvrent ce qu’il en coûte réellement pour maintenir leur système ERP existant en place et opérationnel. Cela peut sembler curieux pour les ETI, qui surveillent généralement de très près leurs dépenses. Mais il n’est pas toujours facile de distinguer les coûts directs et indirects associés à l’ERP.

Outre les frais mensuels et annuels versés au(x) fournisseur(s) de logiciels et au(x) fournisseur(s) de matériel, il y a des dépenses courantes pour le service et l’assistance de vos différents fournisseurs de services (par exemple service matériel, conseil ou réseau). N’oubliez pas d’inclure les coûts de mise à jour si vous avez détecté (ou pensez) que des mises à jour ou des améliorations sont nécessaires pour résoudre des problèmes existants ou anticipés, comme indiqué ci-dessus.

Considérez également les coûts internes directs du département informatique, y compris les salaires et les avantages, les locaux, les commodités et les fournitures. Essayez de distinguer ceux qui soutiennent directement votre ERP. N’oubliez pas qu’au moins certains de ces coûts subsisteront après la mise à niveau et le déploiement d’un nouveau système, surtout si vous remplacez un système traditionnel sur site par un autre système sur site. La structure des coûts pour les logiciels SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) basés sur le cloud est différente, mais vous aurez toujours besoin d’un point de comparaison pour prendre une décision défendable. Que cette décision soit de garder votre système actuel, de commencer une mise à niveau ERP ou de poursuivre un remplacement.

Quel serait le coût d’un nouveau système ?

Le coût potentiel du passage à un nouveau système ERP vous inquiète ? C’est compréhensible. Un nouveau système ERP est probablement l’une des plus grosses dépenses en équipement non productif qu’une entreprise fera au cours d’une année donnée. Néanmoins, par rapport aux avantages offerts et au montant dépensé pour le maintien du système actuel, la plupart des entreprises estiment que le coût est tout à fait raisonnable et justifiable. N’oubliez pas de penser en termes de coûts du cycle de vie – le coût total sur une période donnée, par exemple cinq à sept ans.

Lorsque vous examinez le coût d’acquisition et de déploiement d’un système de remplacement, sachez que les coûts du matériel et des licences logicielles ne sont qu’une partie de l’équation. Vous devez également inclure les éléments suivants dans votre évaluation :

  • La mise en réseau et les périphériques tels que les scanners de codes-barres, les appareils mobiles et les logiciels clients, ainsi que l’assistance.
  • La conversion et la saisie des données dans le nouveau système, ainsi que les dispositions pour l’archivage et l’accès aux enregistrements historiques.
  • La préparation aux sinistres, y compris les systèmes de sauvegarde ou de basculement, les ressources de récupération des données, la connectivité redondante et les communications.
  • La formation de l’équipe de déploiement de l’ERP et de tous les futurs utilisateurs (ce point est d’une importance capitale, ne le négligez pas).
  • Le développement et la documentation de nouveaux flux de travail.
  • L’assistance à l’implémentation. Il est probable qu’un certain niveau d’assistance sera inclus dans l’offre du fournisseur principal du système. Mais vous voudrez peut-être faire appel à une assistance supplémentaire du ou des fournisseurs, à des consultants externes, à votre cabinet comptable ou à d’autres personnes pour certains ou tous les éléments énumérés ci-dessus.
  • La charge supplémentaire pour vos employés pendant le déploiement sous forme d’heures supplémentaires, d’embauche d’intérimaires pour les aider dans leurs tâches habituelles afin qu’ils aient le temps de travailler sur le déploiement, ou de primes et autres incitations pour maintenir la motivation des salariés.

Sachez que la structure des coûts des systèmes SaaS basés sur le cloud est très différente de l’approche traditionnelle d’achat et d’implémentation sur site. Avec le SaaS, il y a peu ou pas de frais initiaux pour le matériel, car il s’agit essentiellement d’un abonnement. Un contrat SaaS inclut généralement une grande partie des coûts de maintenance et d’assistance. De sorte que vos coûts informatiques internes courants seront considérablement réduits. La plupart des entreprises estiment que le coût total sur cinq à sept ans avec un contrat SaaS sera probablement inférieur au coût total de l’achat et de la gestion en interne.

Au moment de prendre la décision de conserver votre système actuel ou d’envisager un remplacement, pensez aux bénéfices que vous pouvez en tirer. Avec une nouvelle solution ERP, vous bénéficierez d’une interface utilisateur moderne, de capacités et de fonctions supplémentaires, et vous améliorerez votre avantage concurrentiel. Tandis que si vous conservez votre ancien système, vous limitez votre capacité à rester agile, productif et compétitif. Bien que vous ne cherchiez pas en premier lieu à réaliser des économies, les exemples de réussite avec des ERP modernes démontrent que les bénéfices du passage à un nouveau système sont souvent moins coûteux et compensent les frais de mise à niveau.

Comment justifier financièrement un nouveau système ERP ?

Lorsqu’elles prennent une décision de cette importance, la plupart des entreprises exigent une analyse coûts-avantages sous la forme d’un retour sur investissement (ROI) attendu. Le côté coûts est facile : additionnez les coûts prévus comme indiqué ci-dessus. Du côté des avantages, il peut y avoir des économies directes sur les coûts informatiques, mais pour énumérer les principaux avantages, l’entreprise doit prévoir comment le système changera l’environnement de travail et permettra d’améliorer les performances, la productivité et le service à la clientèle.

  • Amélioration des performances : De nombreux projets ERP se justifient par les améliorations attendues en termes d’efficacité (réduction de la main-d’œuvre directe) et de réduction des coûts (y compris, mais sans s’y limiter, la réduction des stocks). Sachez toutefois que le système ne crée pas ces avantages par sa simple implémentation. Le système organise, analyse et présente les données de manière à ce que les responsables puissent mieux utiliser les ressources humaines et prendre de meilleures décisions, et c’est cela qui apporte les plus grands bénéfices. Gardez cela à l’esprit lorsque vous établissez un budget pour la formation des utilisateurs et pour la mise en œuvre de procédures améliorées.
  • Un meilleur service à la clientèle : Ces avantages sont moins directs, mais encore plus importants. En améliorant le service à la clientèle, vous pouvez théoriquement augmenter les ventes et les bénéfices, accroître votre part de marché et peut-être même augmenter vos marges, car un bon service à la clientèle apporte une valeur ajoutée au client sans ajouter de coût au produit lui-même. Dans certains cas, les améliorations du service à la clientèle deviennent une condition de survie. Car lorsqu’un nouveau ou un gros client attend des fonctionnalités telles que la transmission électronique des commandes ou l’amélioration des rapports informatisés, votre système ERP doit être à la hauteur.
  • Changements de l’environnement de travail : les systèmes d’aujourd’hui sont conçus pour être faciles à utiliser (l’UX, l’expérience utilisateur, est le mot actuellement à la mode) pour un accès rapide et facile à l’information. Le travail et le flux de travail de chaque utilisateur étant uniques, les systèmes actuels sont hautement personnalisés pour offrir à chacun les écrans et les processus de travail les plus efficaces et confortables. Cette efficacité accrue permettra aux salariés d’en faire plus et de gérer un plus grand volume d’affaires sans avoir besoin d’embaucher. Notez qu’il est déconseillé de justifier le système par une réduction des effectifs. Cela ne se produira probablement pas et la perspective de suppressions d’emplois ne motivera pas les salariés à adopter le système et à contribuer à son succès.

La sélection d’un ERP n’est qu’un début

Tout en suivant les conseils pour évaluer les systèmes ERP, gardez à l’esprit que le remplacement des systèmes existants n’est pas un processus simple ou rapide, mais qu’il vaut la peine car il peut apporter des avantages considérables lorsque l’ERP est correctement sélectionné et déployé.

La question que la plupart des entreprises se posent à ce stade est la suivante : « Combien de temps faut-il pour choisir et remplacer un système existant ? » Il n’y a pas de réponse unique. Cela dépend de la taille et de la complexité de l’organisation, du fait que l’un ou l’autre ou les deux systèmes (ancien et nouveau) soient basés sur le cloud, de la dynamique de l’entreprise et de l’équipe de déploiement, du niveau d’engagement de la direction dans le projet, et du degré de coopération ou de résistance au sein de la communauté des utilisateurs… pour ne citer que quelques-unes des variables. Certains déploiements peuvent être réalisés en quelques mois, d’autres prennent un an ou plus. Un partenaire expérimenté peut vous aider à établir un calendrier réaliste lorsque vous définissez votre plan de projet.

Nous n’avons pas besoin de vous répéter que le remplacement de votre système ERP sera forcément perturbant. S’il n’est pas possible de totalement les éviter, les perturbations peuvent cependant être minimisées grâce à un déploiement bien planifié et géré.

The post Il est temps de mettre votre ERP à niveau ? Guide pour le remplacement de votre ancien ERP appeared first on SAP France News.

Source de l’article sur sap.com

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8 Domain Name Myths Every Web Designer Should Know

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A domain name is an essential element of every project, product, and company. It’s central to a brand and has a disproportionately large impact on user experience. Not only that, but it also impacts SEO and ultimately revenue.

Domain names are also one of the most commonly retailed elements in web technology, with most designers hoarding a small empire’s worth of domain names “just in case” the right side-project comes along.

Because so much of the information and advice on domain names is provided by companies selling domain names and is therefore not impartial, we wanted to bust some of the myths you’ll encounter.

Myth 1: Anyone Can Own a Domain Name

In fact, almost no one can own a domain name. As demonstrated by the (probably) annual renewal notices you receive, you are merely renting a domain name.

You pay a registrar, who registers the domain with ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) — or an entity to whom ICANN has delegated the responsibility for a particular TLD.

Even when renting a domain, you do not have the right to use it; thousands of UK-based businesses have had .eu domains stripped from them as a result of being removed from the EU.

Myth 2: There’s a Perfect Domain For Every Project

Domains do not have inherent value; they acquire value over time.

25 years ago, if you were building a search engine, the ‘perfect’ domain might have been search.com, find.com, or perhaps look.com — the particularly cynical might have opted for webads.com. You almost certainly wouldn’t have registered google.com because it says nothing about search.

Any domain name can acquire value through longevity, SEO, and branding

google.com acquired its value through a simple, relentless branding strategy and a generous dollop of luck.

Any domain name can acquire value through longevity, SEO, and branding.

Myth 3: Your Domain Name Should Contain Keywords

If you’re at the point of registering a domain name, either your business is new, or your digital strategy is. In either case, you have hopefully carried out keyword research, but without a live site, your keyword research hasn’t been validated. In other words, you don’t know what your keywords are.

Even if you’re confident that you know exactly what your keywords should be at this time, your keywords may change. The pandemic has required most businesses to pivot to some degree. eatoutny.com isn’t much use if legal restrictions have forced you to switch to a delivery business — unless you’ve also registered eatinny.com.

Furthermore, in the area of ecommerce, customers tend to view keyword-heavy domain names as budget options because they are like generic-brand goods. It may be that your business will only ever be a budget option, but it’s not a wise business decision to restrict your options.

There is an SEO benefit to keywords in a domain, but it is minimal and will almost certainly vanish in the next few years — even for EMD (Exact Match Domains) — because it is too close to gaming the system.

Myth 4: You Don’t Need a .com

As frustrating as it may be to seek out a .com you’re happy with, nothing says “late to the party” like a .biz domain.

A .co extension is slightly better in some regions because the .co.** format is commonly used; .co.jp for example. However, .co tends to be typed as .com by users accustomed to the more common format.

nothing says “late to the party” like a .biz domain

It’s possible to opt for pun-based names using regionally specific TLDs like buy.it, or join.in. This kind of strategy will play havoc with your local search strategy because computers don’t understand puns; you’ll potentially do quite well in Italy or India, though.

If you’re registering a domain for a non-profit, then .org is perfectly acceptable. However, carefully consider whether a domain is worth the lost traffic if you can’t also register the .com (because people will type .com).

The one exception is industry-specific TLDs that communicate something about the domain’s contents to a target demographic. For example, .design is a great extension for designers, and .io is fine for an app if it targets developers (i.e., people who understand the joke). You should also register the .com if you can, and if you can’t, carefully consider whom you’re likely to be competing with for SERPs.

This is not to say that anything other than a .com is worthless, just worth less than the .com.

Myth 5: A Trademark Entitles You to Register a Domain

Trademark registration and domain registration are two entirely different processes, and one does not entitle you to the other. This has been legally challenged a few times and fails far more often than it succeeds.

Trademarks are rarely blanket registrations, which means the trademark owner needs to declare the industry in which it will operate; there was no enmity between Apple Inc. and Apple Corp Ltd. until the former moved into music publishing and no one could download the White Album onto their iPod.

There is, however, a limited value in registering a domain that has been trademarked elsewhere. Not least because you will be competing against their SEO, and if they’re big enough to trademark a name, they’ve probably grabbed the .com.

Myth 6: Premium Domains Are a Good Investment

Premium domains are domains that have been speculatively registered in the hope of attracting a huge resale fee. The process is commonly referred to as ‘domain squatting.’

Domain squatters bulk-register domains in the hope that one of them will be valuable to someone. As a result, they are forced to charge exorbitant fees to cover their losses; a premium domain will cost anything from 1000–100,000% of the actual registration cost.

Setting aside the cost — which would be better spent on marketing — premium domains often come with legacy issues, such as a troubled search engine history, that you do not want to inherit.

Myth 7: A Matching Handle Must be Available on Social Media

The business value of a social media account varies from company to company and from platform to platform. Even if it is valuable to you, numerous marketing strategies will accommodate a domain name: prepending with ‘use,’ or ‘get,’ or appending with ‘hq,’ for example.

More importantly, it’s unwise to allow a third-party to define your long-term brand identity; sure, Facebook is huge now, but then so was the T-Rex.

Myth 8: You Need a Domain Name

A domain name is an alias, nothing more. You don’t actually need a domain name — what you need is an IP address, which a domain name makes human-friendly.

Think of domain names as an accessibility issue; humans are less able to read IP addresses than computers, and domains bridge the gap. (See how helpful accessibility is?)

While a domain name is beneficial, question whether a sub-domain or even an IP address would do. Registering a domain is an exciting stage of a project that many people never get past, leaving themselves with a huge collection of domains that they pay an annual fee for, and never actually develop.

What Makes a Good Domain Name

Now we’ve dispelled some of the myths surrounding domain names, let’s look at the key characteristics shared by good domain names:

A Good Domain Name is Brandable

A brandable domain is non-generic. It’s the difference between a sticky-plaster and a band-aid. Unique is good, rare is acceptable, generic is a waste of money.

A Good Domain Name is Flexible

Keep it flexible. Don’t tie yourself to one market or one demographic. Your domain name needs to work now and fifty years in the future.

A Good Domain Name is Musical

Six to 12 characters and two to three syllables is the sweet spot. Names in that range have a musical rhythm our brains find it easier to retain and recall.

A Good Domain Name is Phonetic

There are 44 word sounds in the English language. Other languages have similar totals. If you use a domain name that is pronounced phonetically, it will be easy to communicate.

Source

The post 8 Domain Name Myths Every Web Designer Should Know first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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Going Cloud-Native with David Linthicum

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Cloud computing has come a long, long way from the early days of mainframe timesharing technology and virtualization. Over the past decade alone, we’ve seen cloud computing experience tremendous growth, providing ubiquitous solutions for both consumers and enterprises. This trend is expected to continue with the rise of cloud-based services for machine learning, artificial intelligence, and edge computing.

However, the transformation to cloud computing remains a very challenging prospect for many enterprises. Enterprises need to consider factors such as cost, security, legacy and on-premise technologies, and the value of using cloud-native vs cloud-agnostic services.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Cloud Applications Require a Distributed Database

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We are well past the experimental stage with the cloud. It’s become mission-critical, and we have entered a stage where our applications and services need to take advantage of the globally distributed nature of the cloud and deliver on the expectations of our consumers.

Legacy relational databases are simply not built for the cloud. They are difficult to scale in this environment and costly to maintain their uptime. NoSQL stores were built to address legacy limitations; however, they fall short when it comes to providing consistent transactions. They are casually consistent. Some of the most successful global organizations have purpose-built databases that achieve the reliability of the relational store with the benefits of scale and global coverage that comes with the cloud. These databases are a new breed called Distributed SQL.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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