Beanless Java CMS Development
Todd Zeiger
2019-07-15
At Authentic, we are constantly searching for ways in which we can optimize the technologies with which we work. This means that we are routinely developing enhancements to make these tools faster, more flexible, and more consistent with the ambitions of both developers and business users. Through our work with a wide range of enterprise customers - across industries and of various size and maturity - we have come to realize that speed and efficiency are the currency of the era, and the true success factors when it comes to digital experience management. Specifically, the quicker we can develop new assets within a platform, and enable marketing teams to bring new concepts to life, the more creativity can flourish. It is within this state that the most valuable and innovative customer experience concepts and brand advancements are born.
While brXM is notably fast and comes outfitted with robust capabilities that allow organizations to rapidly deploy the solution, we believed that it could be even faster and easier to implement. Analyzing the platform, we identified one pattern that inhibited top speed: the need to write Java code in order to map a content document to actual software code. Further, we didn’t believe that it should be necessary to write code in order to create a content document and thus set out to remove this dependency and take the platform to the next gear.
The solution we developed, called Beanless, allows developers to create content types through content configurations that can be put into runtime in different formats, eliminating the need for deployments and the overhead associated with writing, testing and releasing Java code. Specifically, the solution provides the following benefits that are sure to be embraced by the developer community:
Rapid Prototyping and Demos
With Beanless, developers can now create content documents at runtime and immediately use them. This takes the cycle time for content documents down to mere minutes, or however fast you can create documents within the brXM interface.
Bugs and Defects
When coding, we open the door to bugs and defects. With the elimination of the Java coding requirement, Beanless inherently removes the potential for bugs and defects.
Overhead Reduction
Similarly, writing code requires a great deal of supplemental processes, including unit testing, application scanning with tools like Sonar, and eventual integration into various pipelines. Without code, developers no longer have to complete these types of activities when creating content documents, thus expediting the process and removing overhead requirements.
Simplified (and faster) Deployment Processes
Without code, developers have no need to execute deployment procedures. This means that servers no longer need to brought down and re-deployed, simplifying the overall process and expediting development cycles.
As one of only two platinum BloomReach partner worldwide, Authentic maintains a close working relationship with the Bloomreach product team and works with the business to ensure that brXM is, and remains, the best solution on the market. It is because of this partnership that we were happy to work with Bloomreach to incorporate Beanless into the product and are proud to see that it will be included in the next major version release. So crack open a beer and celebrate! Implementing brXM and creating best-in-class experiences just got that much easier (and faster). We can’t wait to see what the brXM community does with this newfound speed, flexibility and agility.
This feature is available since Bloomreach Experience Manager 13.2.0 and you can find more details in the official documentation.