From Touch-to-Cloud

At Onymos, we pride ourselves on the completeness of the Features we provide. You can use them figuratively “out of the box.”  But describing software as out of the box sounds very 1990s, when software did come in boxes… on CDs…

“Touch-to-Cloud” is the phrase we use to describe the complete, end-to-end nature of all Onymos Features.

From the moment the user touches the screen to interact with one of our Features (in your App), through the service logic, and out the back-end to your Cloud provider or 3rd party service provider, Onymos delivers a working system.

Complete UX (not just UI elements)

A question that comes up occasionally is the role of Onymos Features when a dev team is already building with a UI framework, like the Ionic Framework.

The short answer is that the UI framework like Ionic provides a set of easy-to-use UI elements, whereas Onymos takes those UI elements and builds them into an actual UX (user experience).

There’s a lot in this last sentence, so let me expound on some of the statements:

“…Onymos takes those UI elements…”   First, Onymos comes in a framework tailored to your dev environment.  For example, if you’re building in Ionic, Onymos Features are explicitly delivered for Ionic (or Cordova, or React Native, or Java, or Swift).  As such, Onymos Features are assembled with Ionic UI functions.

“…(Onymos) builds [UI elements] into an actual UX…”  Here’s the trick – all the pieces are there to assemble the functionality easily, but someone, presumably your developers, still needs to figure out all the edge and corner cases for specific usage.

At Onymos, one of our tenants is that dev engineers are the most valuable resource.  And the most valuable resources should spend their time on the most valuable aspects of app development.  Thus dev engineers should be creating and innovating on the most complex and intimate dimensions of your mobile-first digital transformation – and not thinking through the corner cases of a basic Chat experience.

Full Source Code = Full Customization + Full Trust

Unique to the industry, Onymos provides the entire source code stack for every Feature.  Some companies give the source for the UI aspect to make it easy to modify the flow or change color schemes, but Onymos give you the Full Monty (Remember the movie?)

So while each Onymos Feature functions touch-to-cloud, development teams have access to the whole stack and can customize any element of a Feature to meet unique or specific needs.

Another benefit of the full source code is trust.

My sports coach used to say, “A team is only as strong as its weakest link.”  This is especially true when applied to software security.  If your app relies on plugins or 3rd party components, you’re immediately inheriting the security profile of those third parties.  The question becomes – Who do you trust?

With full source code, you can trust Onymos 100%.  You can run security checks on the pure source code Onymos provides. Our Features have nothing to hide and nowhere to hide it.

Serverless Cloud Connectivity

One often-overlooked advantage of Onymos is its serverless design.  So many third parties rely on an interim Cloud stop in their data centers while your customer data is on its way to your Cloud/Provider.

Sure, there are ‘excuses’ for this ‘stop’ – data pre-processing, enhanced functionality, control,…. Yada yada yada.  But consider this – if you built the function/component in-house, would you put an intermediary server hop in your design?  Of course not.

Onymos’ Serverless Architecture is a powerful reminder that we build Features the way your team would build them.

There are tangible benefits from a Serverless Architecture.

• It’s faster.  The data goes from the phone/App direct to your Cloud/Provider.  No ‘hops’ (or ‘stops’) required.
• It’s more compliant. In this world of GDPR and CCPA, having your customer’s data stop in another location opens you and your company up to additional scrutiny.
• It’s more secure.  An interim server is literally a “man in the middle.”  Enough said.

Beyond providing context for the phrase “touch-to-cloud”, I hope this article has given you some insight into the architecture and deliberate design decisions which Onymos has taken from the beginning to be a trusted partner in your Mobile-First digital transformation to ensure you meet your mobile development deadlines.