THE AUTHOR:
Achieving leadership in any industry is a challenging journey, full of obstacles. Companies must prioritize digital brand establishment in today’s marketplace to retain their customers. When planning software development, selecting the right platform is a crucial task. The platform is a foundation for future business possibilities and can greatly impact your company’s success. Making the right choice at the beginning can determine the fate of your business.
Node.js usage is spread across businesses of all sizes. Not only do major companies like Amazon, Netflix, eBay, Reddit, and PayPal use it, but over 43% of developers also utilize Node.js for enterprise applications. So, let’s explore why NodeJS is highly regarded, how it operates, and the types of applications that can be created using it.
What is Node.js?
Node.js is a cross-platform runtime environment and library that is open-source and used for running web applications outside of a client’s browser. Its primary function is server-side programming, focusing on non-blocking, event-driven servers, covering traditional websites and back-end API services. Designed initially in real-time, Node.js is built on the V8 JavaScript engine used by Google Chrome’s browser. While this may seem complex, Node.js software has become popular among web developers due to its flexibility and efficiency.
Using Node.js allows for entire websites to be run on a unified “stack.” This streamlines development and maintenance processes, freeing you up to focus on meeting the project’s business goals. Ryan Dahl created Node.js in 2009 after becoming dissatisfied with the limited possibilities that web servers and coding methods offer.
Popular servers at the time struggled to manage high-volume concurrent connections, and traditional coding methods often resulted in blocked processes or the need for different stacks. These challenges made it difficult for businesses to develop all-around products that could meet the demands of high-volume users.
To address these challenges, Dahl created Node.js, which allowed developers to use JavaScript for server-side scripting and unify web application development with one programming language. When Node.js was first released, it only supported Linux and Mac OS X operating systems.
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Node.js Architecture
The way Node.js operates is a major reason for being highly recognized among developers. Unlike other runtime environments that rely on multi-threaded processing models, Node.js performs everything in a single thread.
In a multi-threaded processing setup, a limited thread pool is available to each server for processing requests. Upon receiving a request, the server allocates a thread from the pool to handle it. Theoretically, a single-thread architecture can scale and perform more efficiently than multi-threaded systems.
The Rise of Node.js: A Game-Changer in Web Development
JavaScript is a widely popular programming language used primarily for front-end web development but has now made its way into different areas of application, including Node.js. However, today, many successful brands have utilized Node.js for both front and back-end applications.
But where is Node.js used? Let’s see!
1. Internet of Things (IoT)
The IoT is a network of electronic devices that exchange data, including sensors and actuators. Due to the high volume of devices in an IoT network, managing data streams and requests can be a challenge.
Enterprises and organizations have turned to Node.js since 2012 as a preferred solution for developing IoT systems. Node.js can address multiple requests and events from thousands of devices on the network without sacrificing speed or performance.
Node.js’s architecture and asynchronous processing are ideal for handling the influx of requests and data from IoT devices, ensuring that Node.js servers are not blocked. This, in turn, makes Node.js a fast and efficient application layer between IoT devices and databases storing their data.
2. Real-Time Collaboration Tools
Real-time collaboration applications provide various software solutions for project management, video and audio conferencing, application sharing, or editing of documents. Some successful examples of these applications are Trello, Slack, and Google Docs.
Node.js’ event-based architecture makes it a prime candidate for real-time collaboration apps. Such applications involve multiple users concurrently performing tasks like editing the same paragraph, commenting, posting messages, and attaching media from different devices. The changes made by one user to a piece of content can trigger a sequence of events, with each step depending on the preceding one.
3. Microservices Architecture
Microservices architecture has gained immense popularity in recent years, with significant applications like Facebook, Amazon, and eBay transitioning from monolithic applications to microservices.
Node.js is a powerful solution for devising microservices and creating intuitive APIs to connect them. The Node.js repository boasts frameworks like Express and Koa, which simplify mounting a few server instances for each microservice and designing their routing addresses. For example, PayPal successfully utilized Node.js advantages to boost its microservices architecture.
4 Node.js Products
Below are some detailed product descriptions that showcase the practical applications of Node.js for business uses of Node.js.
Netflix: Global leader in video and streaming media, known for its data-driven approach to delivering a superior user experience to its 195+ million subscribers across the globe. A/B testing is extensively used on the platform to build diverse offerings.
LinkedIn: The largest employment-oriented social networking service, chose Node.js for its mobile app backend when migrating from Ruby on Rails. As a result, the app was significantly faster, boasting to10 times speed improvement and a notably lightweight design.
NASA: Node.js played a key role in NASA’s mission to ensure the safety of astronauts during their dangerous space missions. Following an incident where an astronaut’s life was jeopardized due to inefficient data stored in multiple locations, NASA had to address the challenge of consolidating the EVA spacesuits data into a single cloud database for quicker access. By implementing a Node.js-based system, the number of steps involved in the process was reduced from 28 to 7, significantly enhancing the system’s efficiency.
Trello: It is a project management app built on Node.js for its server-side. With its event-driven and non-blocking nature, this architecture was perfect for instant updates and handling a high volume of open connections.
Top Reasons Why Businesses Choose Node.js
Node.js has become recognized among developers and businesses due to its impressive capabilities. The platform offers a range of benefits, including improved productivity, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and innovation. As a result, many leading organizations, including Paypal, Linkedin, Microsoft, Yahoo, and IBM, use Node.js in their back-end operations.
• The Node.js package manager (NPM) has a repository of over 60,000 constantly growing modules, providing scalable and consistent solutions.
• The cloud scalability feature of Node.js automatically scales up or down based on the traffic, leading to cost savings during periods of low usage.
• Node.js can be hosted on affordable PaaS hosting providers for businesses compared to other options.
• Node.js ensures that high data exchange is conducted seamlessly in the backend.
Choosing the Best Node.js Development Agency
Consider these critical factors when selecting Node.js development services for your application development project. Companies can enjoy many benefits from hiring Node.js developers, including increased efficiency, faster development, and improved scalability.
1. Identify Your Requirements and Plan Budget
If you have an in-house frontend team handling app development, consider whether there are any additional requirements. It’s a good practice for all teams to understand the technology and app development to promote seamless communication.
Besides, budget is an essential factor to consider. Although fixed-price contracts may seem affordable, there may be better options for your project as you may want to explore new functions or make changes based on customer feedback. Having a flexible budget allows these changes to be made during development.
2. Check the Portfolio
When selecting a Node.js development company, experience means a lot. Basic knowledge and a few years of experience can help complete the project successfully. Look for relevant experience, qualifications, training, and certificates. Review case studies to understand their expertise and the number of clients served. The perfect service provider should have experience in your niche and deal with the challenges your internal team faces.
3. Read Customer Testimonials
Customer reviews play a crucial role in making buying decisions. To ensure the quality of a product or service, check testimonials. When hiring a mobile or web app development company, customer reviews can provide insights into the company’s expertise, strengths, and weaknesses. It is also essential to consider long-term solutions and to look for authentic customer reviews on reliable platforms such as Clutch.
4. Consider Project Management and Communication Skills
Effective communication and collaboration are crucial soft skills that impact the ease of working with a Node.js development company, even if it doesn’t directly affect the app’s quality. Outsourcing to a third party can be more challenging than working with an in-house team. This can result in delays in completing the project.
Wrapping Up
Node.js emerges as a well-equipped platform for building robust business solutions that can handle multiple processes simultaneously. Its large community of developers and researchers ensures that it is highly adaptable and can be used to construct solutions that take massive amounts of data. Additionally, its architecture continuously evolves to improve the interlinkage between all components and establish a secure ecosystem that guarantees data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
In conclusion, Node.js is a reliable technology for modern web development, favored by major corporations and individual developers worldwide. With its impressive capabilities, Node.js can help businesses enhance productivity, save costs, and promote innovation. If you’re looking to develop scalable web applications that meet the demands of high-volume users, consider Node.js today.
Don’t miss out on the incredible benefits of Node.js – schedule a consultation with Computools’s experts at info@computools.com to transform your application in a way that gets you more users that stay longer.
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