In the digital age, software development is essential for our daily lives. From its far-reaching consequences and influences on our day-to-day lives to its role in businesses and how they are run, software development shapes our world in more than one way.
One of the key reasons it can do so is constant innovation and the rise of new technologies. These technologies help us create better software tools that improve our lives and help us grow as a civilization.
Thanks to the constant stream of new and increasingly more sophisticated technologies, like AI/ML, speech-to-text, etc., software development will keep growing and define our lives for many years to come.
Every year we see some technologies take the forefront and drive the market forward. Many factors decide which technologies will be the trend drivers in any given year. From an immediate and global need, like communication and collaboration tools like Zoom and Slack that rose many folds in popularity due to the Covid pandemic, to business requirements that need to be met, the growth in the popularity of these technologies depends on many factors. And in today’s blog, we will take a look at ten technology trends that will rule the software development sector in 2022.
Key highlights
Infrastructure as a Code (IaC)
Infrastructure as a code (IaC) is the management and provisioning of infrastructure such as networks, virtual machines, load balancers, etc., through code instead of manual processes. IaC lets you create configuration files that contain infrastructure specifications. These files make it easier for you to edit and redistribute configurations and ensure that you provision the same environment every time they are launched. IaC is a descriptive infrastructure management model and uses the same versioning as DevOps teams use for source code versioning. IaC also allows companies to divide their infrastructure into smaller modules that can be put together in different ways with the help of automation. IaC is a growing trend in the software development market, and 2022 will see it become a prominent force. It makes cloud adoption easier, helps achieve higher efficiency and configuration consistency, and removes the human-error factor from infrastructure management.
Low-code Development
It’s no surprise that code development is of significant importance for any software development process. But with the rising number of software tools required, software application developers have no choice but to find a way to make code development faster and easier. This is where low-code development techniques come in. Simply put, low-code development allows people to create software applications with minimal coding. Instead, low-code development environments employ graphical interfaces and tools to let users create applications quickly and with relative ease. While it is far from a full-fledged replacement for coding since highly sophisticated digital solutions will always require deftly written codes. But low-code development environments make the prototyping process or the development of less critical software tools a lot faster and easier. Most startups these days need quick proof of concepts and prototypes to show their potential investors. And in an economy that such startups drive, low-code development is a powerful tool.
Mixed Reality
For the past few years, virtual reality and augmented reality have been hyped as the next big thing, which will merge our digital and physical worlds. And they have delivered on that promise up to a great extent.
Virtual reality, with the help of tools like VR headsets, puts you in a digital world. And thanks to the advancements in sensory technologies, VR can create sensations in your body, thus making you feel like you are interacting with the digital world.
On the other hand, AR puts digital images in the real world around you. Pokémon Go, Instagram and Snapchat filters, etc., are all examples of AR. But the catch here is that you have to use a screen to see these digital images.
Mixed reality is the next logical step in the evolution of computer vision technology that bridges the gap between the digital and the real world. In mixed reality, you interact with your digital and physical world at the same time. Using cutting-edge sensory and vision technologies, we can now build applications that let people immerse in real and digital worlds simultaneously. Of course, we are still ways off from making this technology mainstream, and there are still some technological kinks to take care of, but in 2022, mixed reality will start popping up in more and more software development processes.
Composable Applications
Given the rapidly changing customer demands, market trends, and compliance rules, companies have no choice but to accelerate the software development process. We have already discussed two ways this can be done: IaC and low-code development.
Another way to develop and innovate quickly is composable application development. They are built in a fashion that allows any business module from them to be decoupled and enhanced separately, without influencing the functioning of the rest of the application.
The age of monolithic software tools is dying, and the era of agile and composable applications that are faster to build and easier to innovate is fast approaching. These applications work on the fundamental principles of agility, orchestration, and resilience and thus allow companies to work and polish a certain module of their application while the rest of the application keeps operational.
Zero-trust Architecture
The rapid increase in the number of cyber threats has forced businesses to rethink how they protect their infrastructures. The old ways of securing assets such as firewalls, browser isolations, end-point vulnerability scanners are all proving futile in front of the new age digital threats. As technology evolves, so does the danger surrounding it.
With every technological leap comes a new set of threats. And as a result, companies need to revaluate their security measures.
We live in a zero-trust era where companies must realize that they themselves must take responsibility to protect their infrastructures. They must hire cyber security experts and build better software applications with the help of technologies such as AI/ML that can detect any kind of threats. But that alone won’t be enough. Companies need multi-tiered security measures. And as a result, in 2022, businesses will invest in bolstering their infrastructure securities and employ tools such as multi-factor authentication, end-point security technologies, intelligent threat, and vulnerability detection, etc. Furthermore, companies must put in place policies and tools that can help them if a threat still manages to breach their security even after all the work they put in. Disaster mitigation is just as important as disaster avoidance because no system can be a hundred percent secure. There will always be vulnerabilities, and the best companies can do is be ready.
Cloud-Native Applications
Cloud-native apps are designed specifically to run on cloud computing architectures.
These applications run on microservice architectures that allocate resources to each service that an application uses, making it flexible and optimal to work in cloud environments.
Microservices split applications into a series of services/modules that run independently. While these modules communicate with one another, they all have their own separate business tasks and are very loosely coupled. It also helps that cloud-native applications are container-based applications. A container is a type of software that isolates an application from the others on a system, thus making it possible for cloud-native applications to run independently and only use the resources that have been allocated to them.
Also Read : Modern Cloud Application Development – A Complete Guide
Ethical AI
Artificial intelligence has become a big part of our lives. In the past few years, we have seen AI/ML go from being just a buzzword to something deeply embedded in our society. But with all the amazing things AI lets us do, one must ask the question: what are the limits?
With countless data thefts and privacy concerns that have surfaced in the past five years, the public perception of AI and the companies that use them has worsened. As a result, companies and governments across the globe are working towards creating sets of ethical guidelines that must be followed while developing an AI.
Citizen Developers
Due to the growing need for newer and more sophisticated software tools, companies build custom software applications. Custom application development is one of the biggest facets of the software development realm. According to recent research, the custom application development service market will hit the $31.76 billion mark between 2021 to 2025 at a CAGR of 7.93%. While there are plenty of custom software application developers in the market, companies are still finding it hard to keep up with their ever-growing needs. As a result, IaC, low-code development, and composable applications will bring a rather obscure software development branch to the spotlight: citizen developers. These technologies allow non-coders to build applications or at least contribute towards building one. There is no lack of creativity and innovative ideas in the world; where most people used to fall short was coding skills. But those days are now over, and in 2022, we will see citizen developers become a mainstream trend.
Predictive Analysis
Data analysis has become a key business operation nowadays. Every business creates data and can create better plans and decisions using that data. But the problem is that most businesses create an insane amount of data that is very hard to sift through and study. That is where predictive analysis comes in. By employing machine learning and artificial intelligence, companies can study great amounts of data and look for key patterns to unveil new opportunities and threats. In 2022, businesses will keep using AI/ML to gain critical insights and make better decisions.
Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE)
Testing center of excellence is an assortment of various QA tools, processes, and human resources shared across an organization. It is a centralized testing platform involving standardized testing processes, quality metrics, tools, and experts. It helps companies enrich manual testing and achieve a higher QA maturity level. TCoE is still in its early stages, but given how complex software applications are growing and how quickly companies have to run through their development cycles, we will see a lot of work being done.
Make your Business Future-Ready with Matellio!
The technology sector is always changing; there is always something new and exciting happening, and businesses need to do their best to keep up with these changes. Innovations and inventions happen to meet a need. It falls on companies to use these next-gen technologies and develop software tools that improve our way of life.
We at Matellio excel at employing the next-gen technologies to make businesses future-ready. From IoT and edge applications built on container architectures to AI/ML-based solutions, we have a vast amount of experience with all the latest technologies in the market. Our talented developers, designers, and testers craft digital solutions that help companies expand their reach, grow, and provide better services to their customers. Our client-centric approach to software development allows us to respect our clients’ vision. With the help of agile development methodology, we deliver results that shatter expectations on time.
Looking for custom software app developers? Contact us and book a free thirty-minute consultation with our experts.
