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Fast-moving development: ARAD tools can cut costs
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January 10, 2005 (Computerworld) -- New tools for boosting developer productivity are gaining popularity with companies seeking to streamline increasingly complex projects by homing in on business requirements rather than technical specifications.
Architected rapid application development (ARAD) software uses patterns that can serve as building blocks to generate common parts of an application—a user interface or a set of business rules, for example. Architects and senior designers can build their own templates, which can then be reused by programmers to automatically generate large chunks of code.
Because the tools often generate as much as 80% of native code, developers can add business logic and complete applications faster than they can with traditional development methods, according to industry analysts and users. Compuware Corp., IBM and Computer Associates International Inc. are among a growing number of vendors creating and improving ARAD tools.
Locus Systems Inc., a Markham, Ontario-based application developer and systems integrator, started using Compuware's OptimalJ ARAD tool to keep its operations competitive when faced with outsourcing pressures, says Richard Blais, Locus general manager.
"This ... is like outsourcing internally," Blais says. "It's like having Bangalore in a box—it gives us that much of a competitive advantage."
So far, Locus has used OptimalJ to generate 65% to 70% of the code for three applications, saving developers several hours of work and substantially reducing the number of bugs found in first-iteration testing, Blais adds.
The Advanced Development Center of Austin has used CA's AllFusion Plex to help it streamline application development and maintenance for its clients, says Bryan Schwiening, the center's general manager of services and sales.
"All of the minor details of the program are generated," he says. "You find yourself architecting and designing and doing less programming."
In addition, the tool has eased the process of changing applications, allowing users to exploit existing IT investments, Schwiening says. "If they decide they want to Web-enable part of an application, I can generate part of this application or all of it to run in a Web server environment," he says. "The next time I regenerate business logic, I don't lose that HTML look and feel that I have built."
According to a recent Gartner Inc. study, ARAD tools will be mandatory for mainstream companies moving to build service-oriented applications. The study noted that ARAD tools improved return on investment to as much as 15 times what it had been when traditional development approaches were used.
"It's generating the portion of the code that the programmer doesn't have expertise in—code that the middleware or technical architect knows," says Michael Blechar, a Gartner analyst and co-author of the report. "Reliability and quality of the code is much, much higher than [it is with] hand-coding."
In addition to productivity gains, users reported substantially lower-than-expected tool acquisition and training costs, the study says. Most organizations reported recouping the investment after one year.
OptimalJ straddles traditional modeling and integrated development environment (IDE) approaches, says Mike Burba, Compuware's OptimalJ program manager. It's designed to take the object-oriented analysis of modeling tools to a higher level of abstraction and has a transformation engine that maps the business model into application frameworks, he says.
"Like an IDE, it allows you to get into that application that is generated and ... edit code," Burba says. "ARAD tools know how to preserve the changes on existing code."
Benefiting the Business
Royal Bank of Canada has used OptimalJ to more closely link development to business issues, such as customer service, says David Hewick, group manager for application architecture at the Toronto-based bank. It has used the tool in a pilot to build a Web-based J2EE application, and Hewick estimates that developers can gain 25% to 30% productivity compared with using a traditional J2EE approach.
"It was an opportunity to improve the development life cycle, reduce costs and bring consistency," Hewick says. "The modeling environment institutionalizes a lot of the underlying architecture. It generates a lot of the code we don't have to write, to test. That translates into time developers can spend on business issues."
IBM is revamping its approach to ARAD by focusing on its new Rational Software Modeler modeling tool and Rational Software Architect design and development software that were announced in October. The tools are designed to replace the Rational Rapid Developer tool, which IBM will continue to support but no longer market.
CA also announced a new release of AllFusion Plex that uses patterns to automate development for Windows, J2EE and IBM i5/OS environments. New features include the ability to create business logic components that can be exposed as Web services or components to .Net-based applications.
David Kelly, president of Upside Research Inc. in Newton, Mass., says his clients have reported significant benefits from using ARAD tools, including lower development time and costs.
"These tools are certainly light-years ahead of the old client/server, model-driven development tools that were typically too cumbersome, too difficult to get the reuse out of ... and generally just didn't deliver on the ROI," he says.
But he notes that using the tools requires developers to adopt a new mind-set when building applications.
"Developers have almost a cowboy-type mentality—to code quickly and get on with the next thing," Kelly says. "To gain the benefits, you have to have a little bit of discipline—put the effort into finding the right patterns and right architecture and ensure the developers and architects are using the tools and processes consistently."
ARAD Technologies
ARAD tools come with prebuilt J2EE and .Net frameworks and often have links to UML and BPA models. The tools then generate code or rules for runtime routines or BPM systems.
Source: Gartner Inc., October 2004
AT A GLANCE
ARAD Tools . . .
Focus on the use of patterns to serve as building blocks to automatically generate common parts of an application.
Can generate as much as 80% of "housekeeping" parts of applications, such as user interfaces and business rules that can be reused.
Are designed to be used to repurpose applications to new environments like the Internet more easily because developers can exploit existing underlying code and add only new business logic.
Can post ROI gains ranging from 2-to-1 up to 15-to-1 in comparison with traditional development approaches, according to a Gartner study.
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