Project Description
Building enterprise grade technology applications is hard. Before the first line of code is written, there are a myriad of decisions that need to be made concerning the infrastructure of the application. What operating systems do we use? What application web server do we use? What languages to we use? How do we connect to our existing databases? Where do we even start? LEAF may be the answer for your purposes.
KRM’s LEAF
Leveraging the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Enterprise Health Management Platform (eHMP), KRM Associates has created an aPaaS (Application Platform as a Service) solution built upon the best of the eHMP framework. Retaining and augmenting the very robust Software Development Kit (SDK) and lightning fast Node.js infrastructure, the Light Enterprise Application Framework (LEAF) adds an extensible database layer which allows the use and connection to a wide-variety of relational database management systems such as: MySQL, Postgres, MS SQL/Server, and Oracle. The database layer of LEAF also contains plugins for NoSQL databases such as MongoDB. KRM has also removed all healthcare and VA specific code, which allows LEAF to solve all manner of business problems, not just healthcare.
By using LEAF, enterprises can enable rapid application development, enforce application consistency and delivery, as well as the streamlining of application provisioning and deployment.
Built to scale
The entire platform is designed for flexibility in both the application development and deployment – whether it is on-premise servers or cloud based systems. Built around the concept of DevOps and Continuous Integration, LEAF can be deployed with Chef on bare metal, containers such as Docker, or Virtual Machines. The platform is ideal for cloud-based environments like Amazon Web Services as it can be designed to horizontally scale to meet cyclical or peak performance demands. As micro-services are utilized, additional temporary containers can be automatically spawned to meet the increased demand on those services. When the demand decreases the system will scale back and dispose of the temporary containers. This functionality allows LEAF to scale to meet the most demanding enterprise functionalities.
Benefits of LEAF
The use of a platform as a service provides many benefits to the enterprise. Instead of starting from scratch for enterprise applications, all of the framework and infrastructure such as authentication are built into the platform. A common and scalable application framework allows developers to be instantly productive working on business requirements versus spending many hours simply on building a scalable IT infrastructure.
Some other key points and benefits of LEAF to the enterprise:
- Expedites rapid modernization efforts;
- Flexible, modular, extensible, and customizable;
- Powerful database layer with connection plugins for both relational and NoSQL databases;
- Organized and architected to deal with complex business workflows, data, and security requirements;
- Designed for Government requirements such as Section 508 and FISMA security;
- Supports integration with external systems, including ones secured with two-way SSL;
- Excels in cloud deployments;
- Extensive SDK support allows for the platform to be extended quickly and easily to meet any business requirements.
