Back-end integration and security top challenges for the Mobile Enterprise

Red Hat has unveiled results from its recent mobile trends survey. According to the findings, while mobile plays a role for 73 per cent of organisations, nearly half of the respondents identify security (45 per cent) and back-end integration (43 per cent) as the top challenges for mobile app development. Additional challenges identified by respondents include UI/UX design (35 per cent), team collaboration (34 per cent), and cost (24 per cent).

Red Hat polled global customers to identify the priorities and challenges around enterprise mobility, as well as emerging attitudes toward the Internet of Things. Key findings from the survey include:

More than half of organisations that are developing mobile apps are still dependent on do-it-yourself back-end integration solutions. When integrating mobile apps into back-end systems, 55 per cent of respondents that develop apps say they use external sources (libraries, marketplace and vendor services) to develop custom back-end integrations, custom-developed back-end integrations coded from scratch, or a mix of both. This demonstrates a high dependency on do-it-yourself approaches to the complexity of connecting apps to enterprise systems. Although mobile application platforms and Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS) exist as effective solutions to integrate apps with enterprise back-end systems, less than one-third (30 per cent) are using them, with one in five (20 per cent) using application programming interface (API) management. In addition, 20 percent of respondents either use existing middleware technology or an API from their back-end software vendor to connect their mobile apps.

The majority of organisations anticipate the Internet of Things (IoT) will impact their business. Most businesses are acknowledging the growing relationship between mobile and IoT by actively planning for the next wave of integration that will be required by connected devices. While 21 per cent of organisations have already incorporated IoT projects into their business, more than one in four (28 per cent) plan to do so in the next year, and 70 per cent plan to do so over the next five years. Given the demonstrated pain point of back-end integration, companies should focus on a solution that effectively integrates IoT.

Organisations’ priorities for IT resources are geared toward core systems. Despite the appetite for mobile and IoT, when allocating IT resources for the year ahead, 60 per cent of respondents are prioritising maintenance of core systems and applications. This points to shadow IT as an increasing trend, where employees bypass IT to create and use their own apps.