Code less,
deliver faster.

Livebase integrates a suite of tools to design, generate, deploy, administrate and maintain Cloudlets through their entire life cycle.

Dashboard  is a desktop client connected to the Livebase Cloud Services, providing a user interface to control and operate all other components of the Livebase platform.

 Designer   is a user interface (part of the Dashboard) to capture and visually represent business-level functional requirements by drawing a set of integrated diagrams  (Livebase Models).

 Library  is versioned repository allowing developers to store and share Models within their team. The Library also features metrics, version control, and tools to search and reuse elements of models drawn in the past.

 Coder  is a code generator translating a Model (drawn with the Designer) into the DDL code to create the Cloudlet database and into the Java code implementing business rules and the GraphQL API.

 Builder  compiles the code generated by the Coder into a Cloudlet installation package (optionally a Docker container) ready to be transferred to the target hosting infrastructure.

 Updater  generates the DDL required to update the structure of the Cloudlet database (schema-morphing plan) to make it compatible with the business logic, once it has been regenerated after a Model change.

 Deployer  connects the Hosting Agent on the target hosting infrastructure and transfers there the installation package generated by the Builder or the database schema-morphing plan generated by the Updater.

 Hosting Agent  is a lightweight agent that must be installed on a hosting infrastructure to let Livebase deploy Cloudlets there and manage them.   

Empowering developers and leaving them free

Unlike most Low-Code development platform, Livebase has been conceived with an open and best-of-breed approach to low-code software development. In fact, no platform can effectively support all the different areas of software development.

We conceived Livebase laser-focused on creating and maintaining  transactional data services, which we called  Cloudlets , the easiest and most productive way possible, with a few cornerstones in mind: robustness, safety, scalability, interoperability and long-term maintainability.

On the other hand, we made easy and safe to integrate Cloudlets with  other backend and frontend components  by means of a powerful and self-documenting GraphQL API, allowing developers to use the best technologies and tools for such components, and to leverage the growing ecosystem of GraphQL tools.

A better way to retrieve and manage business data

According to the Models they are generated from, Cloudlets can incorporate sophisticated data management algorithms (e.g. virtual attributes, objects preview, historicization and deep cloning), transaction validation rules  (e.g. objects associability) and role-based access control rules.

Moreover, Cloudlets can be extended with additional logic (plugins) coded in any JVM-compatible language, way safer, maintainable and portable than traditional stored procedures.

A solid foundation for any service-oriented enterprise application

With Livebase, developers can: 

• use their preferred BPM environment to implement high-level processes , and rely on the underlying Cloudlets to simplify access to business data and centrally enforce data-quality and permission rules;
  
  
• use their preferred GUI design tools and framework (Vue, React, Angular, etc.) to build the most fancy and compelling user interface they can imagine, and rely on the underlying Cloudlets to retrieve the business data they need (native or derived) structured as they need it.

Full support for enterprise development procedures

Any activity performed on the Livebase Dashboard to create and manage Cloudlets can be also performed programmatically by a Jenkins continuous integration/delivery procedure, via a Gradle integration plugin.  This allows to generate and deploy Livebase Cloudlets along with other application components in a coordinated fashion, my means of a unique integration/delivery procedure. 

Furthermore, Livebase supports Models versioning and allows to deploy the different version of a Model into multiple Cloudlets (e.g. for development, integration, valudation, production, hot-fix) on the same or on different public or private hosting infrastructures.

Livebase charges developers only for the computational work required to (re)generate their Cloudlets, which depends on the complexity of the Models installed on each Cloudlet. Once generated, Cloudlets run free of charge (unlimited API calls) wherever you choose to deploy them.

Livebase measures the complexity of each Model in LCP (Livebase Complexity Points), a very predictable metric inspired to the Function Point standard. The Livebase Designer shows in real-time the complexity of a Model while it is edited, so that developers have a constant feedback of how much it will cost to generate a Cloudlet from the model they are drawing.

The average complexity of a business application model ranges from hundreds of LCPs (e.g. a simple app for reserving meeting rooms or tracking Christmas gifts) to thousands of LCPs (e.g. implementation of business processes at department level), up to several tens of thousands of LCPs in the case of vertical ERP solutions.  Check here some examples of applications built on Livebase and their complexity.

Each Livebase subscription plan provides a given amount of LCPs each month, which developers can use to (re)generate Cloudlets: every time they (re)generate a Cloudlet, the amount of LCPs available in the month is decremented by the LCPs of the Model installed on that Cloudlet.