Contentstack, commercetools, EPAM Systems and Valtech have joined up to launch the MACH Alliance. The Alliance is a non-profit organisation to present and advocate a new, open, and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem. The Alliance’s mission is to future proof enterprise technology. To propel current and future digital experiences with open and connected enterprise technology.
The Alliance believes that the interoperability and open architecture of modern software will propel current and future digital experiences. Algolia, Amplience, Cloudinary, Constructor.io, Contentful, E2X, Fluent commerce, Frontastic, Mobify and Vue Storefront have already joined as inaugural members. The Alliance invites like-minded companies to do the same.
What is MACH Architecture
MACH stands for Microservices, API-First, Cloud-Native, and Headless.
- The microservices-based architecture provides the necessary modularity that allows an application to be broken down in independent package business capabilities. Monolith solutions usually can’t achieve this due to tightly coupled capabilities which are not designed to be deployed independently.
- The headless architecture enables businesses to deliver continuous customer journeys across multiple digital and traditional touchpoints. It also allows driving revenue growth by enabling new business models, for example, enable sales through connected devices.
- The cloud-native aspect is crucial because it provides business with elastic scalability, high availability, and robust security. Also, it makes it easy for an enterprise to use only the capabilities they need on-demand. Thus avoiding the need to deploy the whole suite on-prem or in a private cloud.
- APIs are crucial for an enterprise to accelerate time-to-market for new experiences and business models. API design impacts how quickly developers can learn them and how quickly they can develop new channel applications.
The Microservices based, API-first, Cloudnative SaaS and Headless – “MACH” is inspired by the speed at which software ecosystems can better serve enterprises. The MACH Alliance is committed to helping enterprises adopt and adapt the best and most agile systems, processes and skills. The Alliance wants to turn their digital practices into business differentiators.
The objectives of the Mach Alliance:
- Spread the technical knowledge about MACH.
- Define best practices that help organisations to transition to a MACH architecture.
- Provide assistance to enterprises in the selection process including development of the selection criteria for RFPs.
- Develop technical documentation, such as architectural blueprints and other technical content.
- Host MACH Alliance events, serving as a collective resource at key industry events to educate the industry about the matter.
Driving awareness
“The goal of the MACH Alliance is to drive awareness for the benefits of modern software ecosystems. Platforms that provide the flexibility and openness that traditional software suites were not designed with,” says Matthew Baier. Advisory board member to the MACH Alliance and COO at ContentStack.
“The demand for flexibility and speed has been increasing for years. The current pandemic has escalated the urgency to adopt and provide digital solutions and experiences. The alliance will serve as an educator and advisor for organisations embracing modern, agile and effective digital stack and ecosystem.”
At its debut webinar on 7 July, founding members will demonstrate what a MACH platform consists of technically. They will also answer questions about what the landscape of MACH suppliers looks like.
“Today, there are hundreds of proven SaaS vendors that solve specific business problems (content, commerce, personalisation, etc). Better than the basic functionality offered in suites,” says Kelly Goetsch, President of the MACH Alliance and CTO of commercetools.
A catalyst for change
“Due to the near ubiquity of support for MACH principles and how modern SaaS software works. It is easier than ever to discover, evaluate, purchase, and integrate these vendors. As needs evolve, vendors can be easily added or swapped. As members of the MACH Alliance represent the present and future of enterprise software and services. We aim to be the catalyst for even more change.”
According to Auke van Urk, “We believe in “Transform by Doing”. The MACH architecture enables us to build and run solutions that are less of a compromise to our clients”. Auke van Urk is advisory board member to the MACH Alliance and Chief Technology Officer at Valtech. “MACH solutions are much more adaptable to the ever-evolving business needs and customer expectations,” Auke van Urk added.
“We see real pressure these days to adapt nearly every aspect of global business. Furthermore, to do so faster and more efficiently than ever. These new demands call for an expanded set of choices that are enabled by the modern architectures and capabilities. Those capabilities are brought together by the MACH Alliance,” said Elaina Shekhter. Advisory board member to the MACH Alliance and Chief Marketing Officer at EPAM Systems.
One of the Alliance’s top priorities is to expand its footprint by welcoming like-minded independent technology and services companies to be a part of this first-of-its-kind, open ecosystem technology collaboration.
Enterprise Times: What this means for business?
This is an exciting announcement. Increasingly, digital landscape is getting dominated by a few large players offering monolithic platforms – then the Alliance strikes back. A group huddled together to advocate and support future digital experiences with open and connected enterprise technology. Many within the group have platform engineered some of the world’s leading enterprises. This has given them a front-line view of the digital transformations made possible by the wide-spread adoption of cloud. With the adoption of AI and machine learning, modern technology is getting far more complex and intricate. The Mach Alliance aims to help organisations navigate their way through these challenging times.
