Laravel Shift

If you want to upgrade your current version of Laravel without worrying about doing it yourself, add Laravel Shift to your developer’s toolbox. Their handy service will automatically upgrade you to the latest version of Laravel so you can get on with your coding. Laravel Shift also offers Laravel application reviews, perfect for those new to Laravel or who want to ensure their code is as stellar for clients as possible.
(laravelshift.com)

LaraJobs

If you are a Laravel programmer who wants to build your client list, add LaraJobs to your resource list. LaraJobs lets you search for Laravel jobs for companies wanting in-house employees as well as remote workers. Find everything from engineering roles at up-and-coming startups to programming jobs at international scientific research labs. From senior Laravel developer roles to web application leads, there is a multitude of awesome opportunities waiting to be discovered on LaraJobs. Be sure to add this handy site to your bookmark toolbar as you’ll likely be visiting it on a frequent basis.
(larajobs.com)

Laracasts

Laracasts is another must-use tool for Laravel developers who want to upgrade their skills. Available from Jeffrey Way, Laracasts can help teach you everything from learning Laravel from scratch to building forums or how to complete authentication procedures. There are beginner, intermediate, and advanced learning sessions, and you can learn techniques one episode at a time or complete a series of related lessons. Whether you want to build your first app using Laravel or learn more about caching in Laravel, this powerful resource has the knowledge you seek. Be careful discovering Laracasts, as you might end up feeling like you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of Laravel wisdom.
(laracasts.com)

LaraChat

LaraChat is another one of those resources no Laravel developer should be without. Imagine being able to chat with other Laravel programmers in real time while you’re coding and you’ll understand why LaraChat on Slack is so popular. Leave messages on Slack or participate in live-chat sessions with other Laravel users. With over 20,000 global users, you’ll never have a problem connecting with other developers who can help you hone your skills. LaraChat has a number of popular Slack channels including announcements, Laravel packages, Laravel questions, Laravel testing, and Laravel tools. You can use this phenomenal resource to chat about Laravel 4 and Laravel 5 or follow breaking Laravel news via handy RSS feeds. As with Laracasts, you need to use caution perusing LaraChat or you may find yourself chatting instead of coding on client projects.
(larachat.co)

Laravel Meetups

Not all of your Laravel networking needs to be done online. Thanks to Meetup, you can now discover Laravel networking events near your location. With over 68,000 members and meetings in over 250 locations, there is a good chance you can connect with Laravel users in your area. From Istanbul and Santa Monica to Lagos and Mexico City, you will find a wide variety of meeting opportunities when you dig into Meetup. View networking opportunities by location or by topic of discussion, e.g. open source, application development, framework.
(meetup.com/topics/laravel)

The more effort you put into building your Laravel resource list, the likelier it is you will become an in-demand developer who can command top rates from clients. Dive into each of these resources to see which ones can help you up your Laravel programming game. Chances are good you’ll wish you had discovered some of these fabulous finds sooner.

It has come to our attention that our company was highlighted on the leaders’ list on Clutch as one of Illinois’ top software development companies.

For context, Clutch is a B2B reviews and ratings platform based in Washington, DC. They evaluate solutions companies based on the quality of their work and client reviews. Their review process is reliable and transparent, and we are grateful to those of our clients who have taken the time to provide feedback.

Take a look below at what they had to say about our services:

“Their response time is amazing. They get back to us right away and resolve any issues immediately. If they don’t know the answer right away, they look into it and get back to me as soon as possible.” – Project Manager, Medical Certification Company

“The team works within their timelines and delivers great, high-quality products. One contact from my side works with the developers, and she loves them.” – Founder & CEO, A07 Online Media LLC

The team at Loadsys Solutions is extremely grateful for this amazing award. We are especially thankful to our clients for their support and trust. This recognition and the wonderful reviews are the yardsticks of our success and we will continue to work hard to provide top-notch services to our clients.

To learn more about our company, you can visit our Clutch profile. We have a lot to offer to make sure your next project goes smoothly and as planned. Send us a message today!

Serverless computing lets businesses build agile applications that can easily adapt according to a company’s IT demand and needs. Providers of serverless computing offer pay-as-you-go services, and the platform is great for creating and hosting backend systems that handle mini-programs, web apps, containers, orchestration layers, Artificial Intelligence models, as well as various Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs). Serverless computing can act like Backend as a Service (BaaS) platform and serverless providers take care of all system infrastructure management, all operation and maintenance (O&M) needs while giving clients the freedom to build, develop, and deploy systems and applications without having to worry about hardware, software, networking, or data orchestration needs.

Is serverless computing right for your business? Well, that depends. As with everything in business, it’s best to look at the risk-reward ratio as well as the return on investment (ROI) when deciding whether or not to implement new technology. Since the serverless providers have made these platforms quick to set up, simple to scale, and easy to turn on and turn off, serverless is usually a cost-effective way to reduce IT expenses. Serverless computing can also cut down on capital expenditure because, whereas the purchase of new servers can be considered a capital expenditure or a CapEx expense, cloud costs can be treated as operating expenses or an OpEx. The latter is usually treated more favorably as a tax expense, therefore there might not be direct revenue generation but there could be simple bottom-line improvement with a serverless computing implementation when growing an IT estate.

Standard Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) tasks can also be simplified, while time and energy can be saved when an ETL job run encounters data issues, as they often do. Should particular files not be ready for extraction, the system can trigger an alert that informs any necessary department or individual that there are data issues. The ETL run could be put on hold or even shut down until all required data is ready to be imported. Event-based computing even allows developers to write code that updates compute and storage needs on a serverless system, thereby optimizing a workflow.

On the risk side of the ledger, going serverless means giving up a certain element of control over a company’s IT estate. Although, in general, cloud computing environments are highly secure, any company that falls victim to a cyberattack must coordinate all responses through the cloud provider who hosts the serverless environment. Since the actual servers and infrastructure are owned by the cloud provider, they will be the ones leading the cyberattack response and they will be the ones ultimately responsible for getting the attack under control. Also, serverless computing providers often rely on open-source libraries, but this software tends to be less secure than commercial software.

Today, companies as distinctive as Slack, HomeAway, GreenQ, and Coca-Cola are all successfully utilizing serverless computing platforms to handle such divergent things as chatbot applications, real-time traveler recommendation systems, Internet of Things (IoT) systems that collect key metrics from garbage trucks to improve waste management pickup and delivery, as well as payment processing systems to buy a coke.

Serverless computing can give companies more control over their infrastructure spending. It also can reduce operations and maintenance expenses, increase a system’s reliability, and allow instant scalability to ensure customers won’t be frustrated by a lack of access. Above all else, a technology that allows developers time to focus on the one thing they do best – coding – should be embraced and heralded.

Every year, Clutch recognizes their Leader Award winners, the highest-ranking companies according to geographic location and service line. We are thrilled to announce that Clutch has named Loadsys Solutions a top B2B company in Illinois in the development category!

Clutch is a B2B market research firm based in Washington, DC. The platform is a company resource that features verified reviews from the former clients of B2B companies. This direct feedback ensures that all of their ratings and rankings are fair and transparent.

“It is a great honor yet again to be honored by Clutch as a Top Web Developer for 2020. Clutch has been a great partner to showcase our past work and unbiased reviews from our clients.” – Lee Forkenbrock, CEO

We are grateful for each and every one of our customers, especially those that took the time to leave us a review on Clutch! Here’s what they had to say about working with us.

“The highlight of our partnership is our communication. We’ve worked with other companies before where that was a challenge. Loadsys Solutions is very transparent and is always available..” – Project Manager, Medical Certification Company

This award and our 4.9-star rating on Clutch are all thanks to you, our amazing clients!

To learn more about us and our past work, read our reviews on Clutch. Contact us to get started on your next project today!

In order for the transformation to be a success, the organization needs to come up with processes that will help to overcome conflict related to the digital vision. While this will certainly have technical aspects to it, the solutions must also include:

Creating a List of Digital Vision Goals

Conflicts on the digital vision of an organization often come down to various people or teams not accurately understanding the actual goals. For example, one team may be looking at their specific needs as the goal of a digital transformation. Instead, the actual digital vision should be focused on the needs of the business. What specific IT departments want in this process will simply be processes or procedures that are in place to help support the digital vision.

Create a list of goals for a digital vision right from the beginning so that there is no confusion. Some examples of vision goals that organizations have for a digital transformation include:

• Digital Security Compliance – A significant security breach can result in a loss of trust by customers, fines from governmental agencies, and other significant financial loss. Digital security should almost always be a key aspect of any digital vision.
• Agile Software Development – Your developers are almost certainly being asked to produce more apps faster than ever. Using Agile methodologies can help them to prioritize work based on business need.
• Cost Reductions – Reducing expenses is almost always an important part of a digital vision. This can be done through cloud migrations and other advancements.
• Improved Customer Experience – Creating a portal that your customers can use is a great way to improve their experience. A digital vision will often include specific details about how to improve the customer’s overall experience.
• 3rd party software to fit your needs – Software, such as Smart Field Forms are great ways to digitize workflows.  Or custom solutions leveraging cloud products.

Of course, these are relatively generic goals. A company will need to evaluate their own specific goals based on the industry they are in, their current technical configuration, and many other factors. Keeping the focus on the long term, ‘big picture’ goals will help to guide the entire digital transformation effort.

Designate a Digital Transformation Leader

While most decisions throughout a digital transformation will be made by teams of people, it is important to have someone who can make final decisions. Ideally this will be someone who either has experience with digital transformations or has a strong technical background as well as an understanding of the business.

Some companies will list the chief information officer as this individual. While this can certainly be a good option for mid-sized companies, larger organizations may want to choose someone who can focus their time on this project. The digital transformation leader should be intimately involved with the process so they don’t need to be brought up to speed whenever a decision has to be made. In addition, this person should not be a part of any specific team so that their decisions are not biased.

Create a Strategic Roadmap

Along with the digital vision for the organization, creating a strategic roadmap is also something that should be done early on in the process. In many cases, the obstacles in creating a digital vision will be similar to those of a roadmap. Getting everyone on the same page with this step will help to facilitate the rest of the transformation.

Developing a comprehensive strategic roadmap will provide guidance for various teams to take over the coming months. While it is good to have something written up, it is also important to remain flexible so teams can make adjustments as needed based on the rapidly changing environment.

Loadsys Solutions is the solution to this tricky question. We build transformative web and mobile apps, enterprise-grade custom software, and data-driven IoT solutions. Since 2006, we’ve completed hundreds of projects for a wide range of customers, from small to mid-sized companies.

Our goal is to deliver the best results for customers by maintaining a highly skilled and professional team that uses the most cutting-edge technologies and solutions. According to the reputable research firm Clutch, we’ve met and continue to meet our goal, as they recently granted us a Leader Award for being a Top Developer, particularly in CakePHP development!

A B2B ratings and reviews firm in the heart of Washington, D.C., Clutch connects businesses with the best-fit agencies or consultants they need to tackle their next big business challenge. Clutch covers hundreds of different services, from IT to marketing, and ranks service providers based on a range of factors, including past experience, verified client reviews, and market presence. Considering development is one of Clutch’s most popular service lines, being featured as a leading developer is quite an accolade!

“We are honored to have been chosen as a leader in Chicago software development by Clutch in 2020.” — Lee Forkenbrock, CEO of Loadsys Solutions

We were eligible for a Clutch Leader Award based on our high company rating. We’ve also demonstrated an un-usually high ability to deliver top-tier work to our clients — just check out our reviews to see how!

“They delivered everything on time and on budget, which we appreciated. We were impressed with the way they run their business.”

— Executive VP of Operations, Searing Industries

“Everything that is becoming automated is attributed to their development. Our business has become much more organized and more streamlined by having them. The more automation I have, the more efficient we are. The more efficient we are, the more profit we bring in. Everything I have spent on development has come back and turned into profit.”

— Owner, True Photography

Receiving this award is a huge achievement, and we’re extremely appreciative to Clutch and our clients for recognizing our hard work and commitment. When you’re ready to discuss your project — we’re ready when you are! — simply fill out our online form, and we’ll schedule a quick call.

Language

The beauty of a cross-platform development framework is the ability to develop for both Android and iOS using a single language. React Native relies on JavaScript to build apps, which makes it easy for companies to transition their development teams to work with React Native. It’s also a plus for web developers who can start using React Native without learning a new language. Flutter, on the other hand, uses a language called Dart. Although Dart isn’t widely used outside of the Flutter framework, it’s easy to learn and supports many of the familiar object-oriented concepts seen in other languages. Dart also is opinionated, meaning that it provides rules on how an app needs to be structured where React Native allows a developer to design the application how he or she chooses which is sometimes difficult for future developers maintaining the application.

Performance 

There hasn’t been much definitive testing to compare performance between apps developed on these two platforms, but developers agree that Flutter is likely to outperform React Native in most areas due to the way the framework Is designed. When you use Flutter, your Dart code is compiled directly to native machine code that can be executed by the CPU. React Native works differently, relying on JavaScript as a sort of “middle man” to connect with native components. Eliminating that JavaScript bridge results in a real performance boost for Flutter apps.

Developer Productivity 

When you choose a framework, you want to make sure you can build apps quickly and efficiently. React Native has the benefit of being able to use Hooks–special functions that allow you to “hook” into the React state and other features without creating a class. Using Hooks simplifies the React component lifecycle and results in less code. React Native also has a hot reload feature which saves developers a significant amount of time when they’re testing UI changes. Flutter may not have Hooks available for use, but it does have the hot reload feature, and most developers have found that getting started with the platform is a breeze.

UI Components

At first glance, React Native appears to be the winner in the area of UI components, with a vast number of UI components available for developers. However, this advantage is partly due to the fact that React Native has been around much longer than Flutter. It’s also worth noting that many of these UI components come from third-party libraries. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, there’s always the possibility of bugs or glitches when dealing with third-party components. Flutter, by comparison, may have a smaller number of components overall, but it comes with plenty of handy widgets that are already built into the framework–no need to rely on third-party libraries.

User Community

Community support is key when you’re working with a new technology and trying to solve problems with your code. React Native has been in existence for several years now, so it’s built up a sizable user community during that time. Flutter’s user community isn’t quite as large, but at the pace it’s growing, it’s due to catch up and possibly surpass React Native’s community in the not-too-distant future. With large global companies such as Tencent and Alibaba adopting Flutter for their mobile app development, you can be confident that the support community will continue to thrive.

The Verdict

Both Flutter and React Native have their own pros and cons, and your choice of framework might depend on whether you’re thinking in the moment or taking the long view. At the moment, React Native is the more mature product: There’s more documentation, libraries and components available, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s backed by Facebook. In addition, with the recent addition of hooks, React Native has gotten much less complex than it was in the past.  Flutter, however, may be a “younger” framework, but its long-term potential is unmatched. It’s backed by Google, it has better performance with complex apps and it compiles directly into native code. In fact, many industry insiders call Flutter the future of mobile development. In addition, Flutter apps are more uniform and easier to maintain making long term support much less complex.  

We don’t have a crystal ball to predict what lies ahead in the development scene–we’ll just have to wait and see how the future unfolds.  In either case, over the past few years, cross platform frameworks have become very stable and reliable. It no longer makes sense to use native language code to complete 99% of mobile applications. 

Need react native development or flutter development for your mobile app?  Contact us today!

The thought of deploying software to the cloud worries some developers because your application is available to anyone, including customers and hackers. While your application will need the right security, the benefits of using the SaaS model are far greater than the number of risks. These risks can be mitigated, and you can add the right security procedures to reduce the amount of risk that you have with SaaS. The GCP cloud security has proven to be the safest bet one can take when it comes to securing their system.

Lower Initial Costs

When you set up and IT budget, much of it will be depleted when you buy servers, security equipment and software licenses. IT costs are a huge part of business startup budgets. You can reduce the costs by using cloud computing. Cloud computing has several different cost models, but most startups go with a “pay as you go” model that lets the business pay for resources it uses. As you get more business, you increase your costs, but the costs scale with your revenue.

The lower cost comes from just leasing equipment instead of buying it outright. You lease server space, routers, software, and the cloud provider maintains it. You can get more hands-on service, in which the host helps you should you have any setup issues, but you can start out with the cheapest hosting and work your way up as you increase business.

Hardware and Software Maintained by the Host

When you host in-house services, you need people to maintain the network, update software, and take care of server issues. Since all of the software and hardware is leased and not onsite, you don’t need the overhead of a large team of IT personnel. You still need at least one IT person to handle day-to-day tasks, but you don’t need the large team that an enterprise-sized business needs.

Hardware usually doesn’t need much maintenance, but it still needs firmware upgrades once or twice a month. Without the right firmware upgrades, the hardware can be a security risk. You don’t have this risk, because the host ensures that hardware firmware is always upgraded.

The host also takes care of software upgrades. Software usually needs more upgrades than hardware. If you have a Windows environment, Microsoft releases updates every Tuesday. After each upgrade is released, the host makes sure that your server is updated with the latest patch. Any software you lease from the host will be maintained. This is a huge benefit to a small business that doesn’t have the resources or the time to constantly watch for new updates.

Integrated Servers with Your Local Environment

You don’t need to manage two separate environments when you work with the cloud. It used to be much more difficult to work with a separate hosted environment with your local one, but now cloud providers have services that integrate directly with your local in-house network.

For instance, your developers don’t need to manually upload code to your servers. The SaaS provider has services that let them connect directly to the production and staging environment. This makes any deployments and upgrades for your SaaS software completely seamless. It’s much more efficient for your developers to connect with the cloud host rather than manually copy and pasting code from a development server.

SaaS Can Handle Large and Small Businesses

When you host in the cloud, you no longer need to worry about the amount of resources installed on your servers. The host has enough resources that you can scale up and down. When your software demands more from the host, just log into your cloud host dashboard and increase CPU power, RAM, and hard drive space. The upgrade is instant, and you no longer need to wait for hardware delivery and installation.

Use a Hybrid Cloud System

If you already have an in-house network, you can use a hybrid system to integrate a SaaS application with your current network. This lets you keep your current configurations and expand them to the cloud without interfering with employee productivity.

If you’re unsure if SaaS is the model for you, your application will run faster and have much better uptime than in-house applications. You can rely on the cloud host to maintain equipment and let IT people deal with more important issues.

What is a Docker Container?

Before discussing a docker container, it’s important to understand VMs. A VM was the traditional way IT departments would create virtual servers. You could have several VMs on one physical machine, and they would run just like a dedicated server, provided the physical hardware had enough resources to support multiple VMs.

Because applications installed on VMs were tied to the underlying hardware, moving a VM to another machine meant new configurations, increased applications bugs, and usually reinstallation of the entire environment. One main reason for this inefficiency is that VMs virtualize computer hardware. When you install an application, it’s tied to your server’s configurations, including the hardware setup.

VMs are also set up with a specific operating system. The benefit is that you can have any operating system running on one physical machine. For instance, you can run a Linux box on a Windows server and run your open-source SaaS application on it successfully without interfering with any Windows processes.

IT embraced the idea of VMs, and thousands of large and small organizations use them for various services. The issue with a large number of VMs is that they are quite bulky in terms of resource usage. They require a large amount of physical hardware such as storage, memory, and CPU cycles. The amount of resources necessary to run a VM is determined by the bulkiness of the applications running on it, but most VMs automatically expand when new resources are needed. This type of scaling can be a nightmare for IT administrators.

Docker containers solve many issues pertaining to VMs, but mainly they solve a number of performance problems. Not only are they less bulky than VMs, but the applications on docker containers are no longer tied to any single VM, so you can move them between servers seamlessly. Containers share the main operating system on the physical machine and allow you to have portable applications.

Think of a VM as a fully-hosted machine that uses a set amount of resources on a physical machine. It has its own configurations, operating system, and binary files. With a container, the operating system is the same on all dockers; the only change is the main virtualized application.

Advantages of Using Dockers

Imagine just one of your applications is compromised. Usually, this means that all applications running on your server must be checked for malware. Malware writers create backdoors to various resources on a server when they are able to find vulnerabilities. With a container, the application is in its own space, so this type of attack is neutralized. Even if an attacker is able to compromise one application, it doesn’t mean all applications on the physical machine are compromised.

You’ll often hear the term “isolation” when referring to dockers. Isolation is what allows you to run multiple applications on a single server without any of them interfering with each other. Not only does this process protect from malware, but it also prevents each application from overwriting another.

Dockers run almost twice as fast as the same application running on a single virtual machine. They don’t require the resources that a VM requires, because dockers share the underlying operating system that manages hardware. VMs virtualize their own hardware, so it’s similar to a separate machine running an operating system. With a docker, it’s similar to running a small instance on the operating system without pulling resources from the physical machine.

Your programmers will appreciate containers over VMs, because few configurations are needed. Most developers are required to test each application on the network, and a container is a quick and easy way to test your production software.

Because applications are isolated, security risks are also reduced. You still need to protect the physical machine and the operating system, but the application itself is isolated from other applications. If an attacker is able to breach one of your applications, any others on the physical machine are unlikely to be affected.

If you already have virtual machines configured in your organization, you can run containers within them. This isn’t the preferred way to configure applications and network resources, but it can be done if you have no other options and want to take advantage of dockers without retiring your VMs.

One disadvantage of dockers is that you are bound to a specific operating system. You can’t run your application on various distributions of Linux or use Linux and Windows on the same physical machine. Your application is tied to the operating system, which isn’t a major problem if your software was only meant to run on a particular OS in the first place.

Restructuring your IT architecture always involves some hurdles and testing. Most IT administrators don’t want to change anything in an environment that’s running smoothly. It’s important to deploy containers along with the installed application and test it heavily before unleashing it into production — that means you’ll be spending time and money on a project that isn’t always necessary.

If you’re looking for a solution to performance issues, docker containers could be the answer. They are especially useful in organizations that produce a number of applications. If you produce cloud applications, you can give developers and quality assurance (QA) a quick way to test their new code without affecting other containers. Docker containers can aid your process by allowing you to deploy new versions to containers, test them, and keep the original version intact.

Containers aren’t the answer to all of your performance issues, but they can solve many issues with software versioning, testing, deployment to testing environments, and even streamlining your application security. It takes some time to learn the nuances of VMs versus containers, but the change will ultimately make deployment and application performance easier for IT administrators.

Contact us if you want more help or support in docker containers — our team of experts are ready to answer any questions!