Going MACH? Do it right.

What is MACH architecture?

MACH is IT architecture that’s built on Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless principles.

The approach is especially propelled by The MACH Alliance, who advocates for a best-of-breed technology ecosystem and basically states that “enterprise suites are no longer the safer choice." They argue that MACH is a more agile ecosystem which is always up to date.

And we agree.

Tech moves so fast and new software driven opportunities are constantly being pushed to market. MACH tech supports a composable architecture where each loosely coupled component can be added, removed, and scaled easier than with the old software suites.

The space of composable microservices is constantly growing and architects are offered a wide range of very specialised solutions. A proper MACH architecture allows for easy interconnectivity and changes to both data points and scale.

The use of an API-first strategy ensures that all microservices and every functionality they present are accessed through APIs. In MACH, APIs are not an afterthought but designed first.

The API-first strategy is a major driver for more flexibility, and faster time-to-market.  

Using a cloud-native strategy means that you optimise your architecture for cloud capabilities from the beginning. This contrasts with traditional system architecture which is typically optimised for a static infrastructure (often involving substantial manual effort to maintain and modify). Cloud based architectures are far easier to scale up and down – also across regions.

Lastly, there’s headless. When employing headless principles, you’ve chosen to separate the backend software from the frontend presentation layer. When the user experience is decoupled from the backend, the frontenders are not limited by having to work in the same codebases as the backenders.

Check out our post on Headless Headaches

How we enable MACH 🦸

Enterspeed is born MACH. We enable MACH. And we do it with MACH Speed. When venturing into a MACH architecture, organisations quickly realise that they face new challenges.

Here‘s two challenges we often observe:

1. Not all existing software are headless
2. A plethora of APIs can slow down both development and the end user experience

Enterspeed can make any data source headless and enables your developers to focus on delivering the user experience.

We let you integrate both legacy software and modern MACH enabled software into a coherent and fast API for your customer facing frontend applications. This works by you sending your data to Enterspeed, and then you define the APIs your applications need. Then Enterspeed takes over the responsibility, and we manage the scaling of your APIs.

But how?

To send data to Enterspeed, your developers can utilise our open-source integrations and SDK or they can work directly with our simple ingest API. When integrating with Enterspeed, you can often send the data as it is to Enterspeed, and then worry about how you want to utilise it when defining the API.

We like to think of this as enhancing an existing piece of software with headless capabilities.

In the Enterspeed app you can then define your APIs and reshape your data to match the customer facing applications. You can also merge content from different systems to make your frontend less complicated and shielded from the various backend systems.

This is a big win – both from an architectural and a performance point of view 💪

Innovate fast – develop swiftly

Using a well-designed Federated Content Layer that employs both legacy and new data, you’ll get the benefits of both speed of innovation and speed of development.

By adding Enterspeed to your architecture, you’re one step closer to MACH without having to demolish your entire legacy setup. In other words, you’ll get speed of innovation both in your transformation phase when you move towards MACH, but also in the following maintenance and development.

So yes. We’re complete enamoured with both Content Federation and MACH. And if we’re leaving you thinking “That sounds kind of awesome. I wonder if it makes any sense for MY company…?”.

Well, you can book our very excited CEO Toke Lund for a talk.