The “Connected” Capabilities of Progress’ New Pacific Platform

In a recent blog post I discussed a few best practices for adapting applications to the new world, and how cloud computing is changing the way we develop applications and manage data connectivity. Last week we announced Progress’ new platform-as-a-service, Pacific, which provides an adaptive application development environment and connectivity to thousands of data sources, giving a broad eco-system in which to target an application. Through the connectivity capabilities from Progress DataDirect, we can unlock an application’s full value by allowing quicker data integration, analysis and decision-making.

In today’s world, applications must adapt faster to changing conditions and cloud data migrations both inside and outside the business as well as leverage key services in the cloud to save time. In order to address real-time changes, applications need to conform to new APIs and new data models to dynamically manage the flow of data.

For example, application developers are challenged when it comes to CRM integration and the adoption of Big Data. Often, they will select only one CRM vendor to work with as the cost and pain of working with a few is too great. DataDirect Cloud provides connectivity-as-a-service - a single driver which can connect to multiple data sources, giving companies much more flexibility. Adopting a Big Data distribution is another point of contention. No one can predict which distribution has the legs to survive. Will it be Cassandra, Hadoop, or Cloudera? DataDirect connectivity takes the risk out of the Big Data bet with the consistency that a SQL interface can bring for real time data access.  DataDirect as part of the Pacific offering uniquely addresses the problem of rapidly developed applications that are insufficient due to lack of connectivity to disparate SaaS, relational database, NoSQL, Big Data, social, CRM and ERP systems.

Here’s how the key elements in Pacific come together in building data-driven applications.

• Pacific is an adaptive application development environment that leverages a cohesive data-aware Cloud-based service to help revenue growth through quicker and lower-cost application development and deployment
• By coupling rapid cloud-based application development with high-performance connectivity to most data sources we enable more intelligent applications that can access the right data at the right times for the right people

• Connectivity-as-a-service provides standards-based SQL access to cloud data without requiring customized interfaces or libraries while managing all of the complexity, APIs, and versioning so that the business-critical applications do not have to
• Provides a fusion of application deployment and SaaS data access to mobile users for rapid responsiveness and adaptation to changes