An enterprise platform is, basically, a software set to execute on the needs of enterprises. From the user’s perspective, every site is essentially a single point of contact and control for every customer. This is because an enterprise platform is the glue that holds everything together. An enterprise platform can run on desktop and mobile platforms, and it can be consumed by different types of devices.
I love to work with my clients to think about where we are going to go in the next 12 months, but when it comes time to choose a platform, the first thing we tend to think about is the user experience. If a platform is meant to be a one-stop shop, then it needs to be easy to use and not be difficult to manage.
The key component of any enterprise platform is called the user interface. The best user interfaces are intuitive, easy to use, and have a lot of power. The next step in the development process is to think about the platform’s architecture.
This is actually a hard one to pin down. The idea that an enterprise platform has a “control center” and a “service center” is a fairly recent one. Most of us grew up with the idea that the control center was where we clicked and the service center was where we got our emails and all the rest of it.
Platforms can also be thought of as a stack of application services. Applications are the basic data, content, and processes that an enterprise uses. The platform is the application layer that runs on this stack, and provides services. Some of the services may be the same across platforms, and others may be unique to each platform. We’re not going to get into a long discussion of the history of enterprise platforms, but we will talk about the core functions.
One of the most basic things that an enterprise platform does is make sure that there is a consistent flow of data across all of the enterprise’s applications. This is important because data is the lifeblood of an enterprise. If you’re not consistently able to get data into one application and have it available to all the applications, you’re going to struggle to have a successful platform. An application can store data, but it can’t make sure that it’s always available or up to date.
The concept of core functions is a fairly simple one. In a nutshell it says that the application should be the main point of contact for all the data and data interactions. The Enterprise Platform is what makes sure that all of these applications have access to the same data and that these applications can exchange data to each other.
An enterprise platform can do two things: provide security for data, and allow applications to interact with data. When building an enterprise platform, its important to consider how these two functions will interact. When considering security, an enterprise platform must take into account the potential for an attacker to gain access to data. In other words, there will always be a place for a person with malicious intent to get into your data. For this reason it makes sense to consider the security implications of your data first.
The security concerns for an enterprise platform are similar to those of any other type of software, such as an operating system. Enterprise platforms are built to give your data more protection and flexibility in the event of a bad data breach. In other words, the enterprise platform should be designed to be resilient against bad data, but it should also be designed to help the data be secure.