Developers choose their own tools and can work either locally in their own environment or from the hosted platform with full access to all features. Support is provided for native SDKs as well as leading toolkits, frameworks, and languages. The Cloud Build Farm service supports builds for native and hybrid applications for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

Drag-and-drop development tools allow for fast prototyping and creating apps to achieve fast results, without the need for coding skills. Templates help get your apps started and existing apps can be migrated to the platform, whether they are native, HTML5, or hybrid. Credentials and certificates are centralized and updates can be transferred from one team to another.

A Workforce Management (WFM) solution is available for organizations reliant on field operations. With ready-to-use functionality, there is also the ability to customize to support specific workflow processes and back-end systems.

Security begins on the device with the optional use of encryption for locally cached data, followed by HTTPS from the app to the MBaaS. Authentication APIs make it easy to implement authentication with session management.

Access from the MBaaS to back-end systems can be secured in accordance with the organization’s security policies. This includes: IP address punch through, site-to-site VPNs, strong firewalls, DMZs, approved datacenters, and more.

User security and authentication can be managed using user credentials or an LDAP/Active Directory system. OAuth integration and SSO are also available.

Seamless integration with common enterprise mobility management (EMM) platforms, is provided. Simply check a box and the app is integrated and ready to be distributed.

Having visibility and agility for the complete app development life cycle is essential to continuous deployment. Red Hat Mobile Application Platform supports collaborative development across multiple teams and projects with centralized access control and project visibility.

A coordinated workflow, supported by giving every app and cloud back end within a project its own Git repository, means development teams can work concurrently on multiple projects without impacting individual developer agility.

Mobile application life-cycle management (ALM) allows configuration and management of multiple project environments (e.g., development, test, preproduction, production) incorporating access controls.

A cloud-agnostic architecture offers a wide range of cloud deployments to suit any enterprise requirement. Public cloud deployments offer affordability and reasonable SLAs. For highly sensitive mobile workloads and high-availability requirements, organizations can consider dedicated clouds or hybrid cloud environments for the best of both worlds.

Flexible cloud deployments include:

• Public multitenant—including AWS, Rackspace, HP Cloud, and IBM Softlayer.
• Private—dedicated and managed.
• Hybrid—the app cloud code (dedicated MBaaS) can reside in other clouds.

Knowing how your apps and the platform are performing keeps your users happy and your apps delivering value. Reporting and analytics uses the same role-based access controls as all other pieces of the platform to deliver timely data on app installs, startups, platform requests, and active users by time, platform, and geography.

Performance of your back-end system is just as important to ensure apps remain responsive so the platform gives you real-time endpoint monitoring, alerts, and full auditing.