Define composability: Building adaptable digital ecosystems

Highlights

You’ll learn about the importance of composability:

• Flexibility: Helps you adapt to changing market needs with reusable components
• Efficiency: Optimizes resource allocation and reduces development costs
• Innovation: Encourages creativity by allowing the reuse of modular systems
• Agility: Enhances agile development and offers updates and integration with various apps

There’s a scene in Iron Man where Tony Stark uses various parts and scraps to create the first version of his Iron Man suit. He combines different components to design a suit that helps him escape and create many more suits in the future.

That’s composability. 

The problem with buying software is that you pay for the entire software but may use only 10-20% of it. Composability addresses this issue by building systems from interchangeable components for specific business requirements. 

Composability is driving how businesses approach system architecture and software development. To understand more, it’s essential to define composability and explore its benefits and potential pitfalls when going composable. 

What is composability?

Composability is an architectural approach to designing software systems with interchangeable components. In simple terms, you assemble different components to build a complete system. A composable system is like a LEGO block, where each component connects in many ways. You can create a complex software system based on your business requirements by taking two or three LEGO blocks. You build systems from small independent parts that you can replace or reconfigure. 

Delivering new customer experiences doesn't require building a system from scratch. To accelerate the development process and promote agility, ensure the reuse of existing assets and software components. 

Let’s understand composability with an example:

Imagine an e-commerce platform with separate parts like inventory management and payment processing. Each part can be developed, launched and scaled. This allows for quick updates and easy adaptation to customers’ needs. This setup makes your system more reliable and easy to work with other services. 

Principles of composability

Interoperability

Interoperability is critical to a composable architecture, allowing different parts to work together. Various systems, apps or services share and understand information without hassle. You can link different technologies using standardized protocols and APIs, making data flow and integration easier. You create flexible ecosystems that encourage innovation and collaboration, increasing efficiency.

Discoverability

Discoverability is finding and accessing the necessary components and services in composable systems. This helps developers and system architects locate and incorporate the right modules into their projects. Good strategies, like thorough documentation, rich metadata and search tools, make your components discoverable. Development speeds up when components are easy to find, encouraging innovation.

Reusability

Reusability is essential to an excellent composable architecture. By reusing components, you can use them in different projects, which saves money and ensures quality. Instead of creating everything from scratch, you use existing components. This increases productivity and helps you focus on new ideas and innovations.

Modularity

Modularity is a design approach that divides complex systems into smaller, manageable units. Within a composable architecture, each module functions independently and connects with others. This discovery process ensures your systems remain unified while enabling component development, testing and deployment.

Benefits of composability

Makes your systems flexible 

When you use a composable infrastructure, you can mix, match and rearrange components to fit your business needs. Adapting to changing market needs and providing the latest technologies makes your system more flexible. 

Enhances resource allocation and efficiency

Composable systems divide your resources based on real-time market and customer demands. This flexibility improves your workplace efficiency, ensuring you can use resources, which saves costs and improves performance.

Helps you adapt to changing business requirements

Composable systems help your IT team reconfigure resources, ensuring all your applications have the necessary resources to perform. When a new solution appears in the market, your tech department can use it to stay ahead of the competition. 

Offers personalized user experience

Composable infrastructure connects different digital experience platforms, helping you create custom, personalized experiences. You can engage your customers using data and insights from various components, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Reduces development cost

With composable systems, your development team only works on the front end. The modular system takes care of the back-end functions. As a result, you ensure faster development cycles. Also, you can reuse existing components instead of developing everything from scratch and save costs. 

Improves collaboration

Composability increases teamwork within and across your company. When you remove barriers and let your teams work on smaller parts, you build a culture of innovation and shared goals. Such a composable approach leads to smoother workflows and better results.

How does composability drive agile software development?

Composability is essential for agile software development, making your systems more flexible and adaptable. With modular components, your development teams can change parts of an app without disrupting the entire system. This setup allows different teams to work in parallel, creating and launching new features.

Application programming interfaces (APIs) and microservices help you incorporate feedback and updates, supporting a continuous delivery process that aligns with agile methods. The ability to change components encourages innovation, allowing your team to explore new technologies. 

To drive agile software development, companies use a composable architecture like Contentstack. 

Contentstack provides a headless CMS platform for developers to build and manage content. Its API-first approach helps your team build and connect applications, allowing you to adjust to changing market needs.

Case study: How did Air France-KLM streamline its content creation with Contentstack's composable architecture?

Air France-KLM struggled with multiple content management systems and a complex setup, making content creation difficult. Using Contentstack's flexible system, they improved operations, created one content database and set up a Center of Excellence. With this change, Air France-KLM achieved its Truly Reusable User-centered Content (TRUC) goal. It also improved customer experiences in many areas. The shift improved content management. Contentstack reduced development costs by 50% and made your process more efficient.

After using Contentstack, Ralf Schipper, Product Owner CMS at Air France-KLM, said:

“With Contentstack, we are changing the way we distribute content, and paving the way for personalization. We’re defining the solution to master content distribution and optimize content creation and management.”

Read the complete case study here.

Challenges in composability

While composability offers many benefits, it also brings challenges that you must manage: 

Handling multiple modular parts

One key challenge is handling multiple modular parts. As systems become more intricate, ensuring all parts work well together can be challenging. 

Solution: When systems become more complex, you require strong orchestration tools and skilled staff. Additionally, you can overcome this challenge by investing in advanced management software and training your teams to use these parts.

Interoperability issues

Ensuring seamless communication and data exchange between various modules is essential. Undefined APIs and interfaces lead to inefficient systems.

Solution: Create clear APIs and follow industry standards for smooth integration and a unified system design.

Security issues

Security is a concern in a composable environment. The decentralized nature of composable systems can create security issues. Strong security measures can protect data integrity and prevent unauthorized access across components. 

Solution: Integrate security measures like encryption and access controls for data integrity and to prevent unauthorized access.

The role of composability in digital transformation and application development

Composability is necessary for building flexible and creative apps that fit new business needs. By using modular components, you can add new digital tools. This helps you keep up with changes in the market and what customers want. A modular approach speeds up app development. You can react to the market's needs without spending too much money. Plus, composability lets your team update and add new features. When you embrace composability, you innovate and stay ahead of your competitors.

FAQs

What does composable mean?

Composable means assembling and reassembling components in various ways to meet your business’s needs.

What is composable in programming?

Composable in programming refers to the design principle that allows you to code modules, which you can reuse and combine to build complex applications.

What is the composability of software?

Composability of software refers to the capability of software components to be combined and recombined to create new functionalities.

What is composable technology?

Composable technology uses modular components you can integrate and configure to build flexible and scalable systems.

Learn more

Composability provides a modular approach for creating differentiated solutions that meet your customers' fast-moving and specific needs—without having to start everything from scratch or overhaul your entire system.
As more and more companies adapt and embrace a composable architecture, this trend will likely stay. If you want to know how implementing composable systems changes your software development and presents an opportunity for your business to stay ahead, talk to us.