OutSystems ONE Conference 2024: A Familiar but Exciting Event

October 15th and 16th, the OutSystems NextStep Experience (ONE) conference was held at the RAI in Amsterdam. In recent years, the conference has revealed major updates, especially the move to OutSystems Developer Cloud (ODC). This year, it was clear that OutSystems has made solid progress in this area. The tools for migrating to ODC are being developed well, showing good progress.

Moving Forward with ODC

One of the most positive things about the conference was seeing how much work has been done on the ODC transition. This has been a big focus for OutSystems, and the tools they are creating to help with the migration are coming along nicely. Some of these tools are already available, which is great news for those looking to switch to ODC in the coming time.

AI Takes the Spotlight

Another big focus of the conference was artificial intelligence (AI). AI was mentioned everywhere throughout the event. OutSystems is putting a lot of effort into integrating AI into their platform, making it easier to build smarter and more efficient apps.

If you’re interested in how AI is changing the platform, there are other blogs that go into more detail. For me, though, this year was more about the technical sessions than AI.

Technical Tracks: Solid but Familiar

The technical sessions this year didn’t introduce many new ideas, but they were still very valuable. They went deep into the core functions of the platform, providing useful information for developers and technical architects.

One of the more interesting and relatively new features of the ODC platform is event processing. In addition to the usual methods for handling tasks asynchronously (like timers and BPTs), event processing allows us to run many more tasks in parallel. This feature makes applications more efficient and also helps different apps communicate better with each other, making systems more flexible and loosely connected. This flexibility will be crucial as systems grow and become more complex.

During the ONE conference we have seen this feature in more detail. I will write a blog on this topic in the near future to dive deeper into this interesting feature.

Adjusting Integrations for ODC

For companies moving to ODC, there will be some changes needed, especially with integrations. The good news is that for most companies using cloud-based OutSystems, the transition will be straightforward. REST interfaces, which are commonly used, will continue to work the same way as they did in OutSystems 11, so there’s no need to worry about that.

However, one area that will change is SOAP interfaces. OutSystems has decided not to support SOAP interfaces in ODC, which aligns with a larger trend where REST is becoming the preferred method for integrating systems. REST is easier to use and more efficient. In most cases, it’s best to convert SOAP to REST if possible. But in situations where that’s not an option — especially when dealing with older systems — there is a solution.

The solution is to use an additional layer that translates between REST and SOAP. One good option for this is Azure API Management. This tool allows OutSystems to communicate through REST, while Azure API Management converts that into SOAP calls for older systems. This way, companies can modernize their systems without losing the ability to connect with older technologies.

This solution may take a bit of extra setup, but it’s a practical way to ensure that businesses can keep running smoothly while upgrading to ODC. This said, this is not the only option, there are more possibilities.

Steady Progress, Not Huge Changes

In summary, this year’s OutSystems ONE conference showed that OutSystems is making steady progress. The biggest surprise was the renaming of Project Morpheus to “Mentor” and the possibility for customers to use it right now. The migration to ODC is progressing, and the platform’s cloud-first approach means that most companies will find the transition easy. The new event processing feature will help applications run faster, and the solution for handling SOAP interfaces I have seen, shows that OutSystems can be used for real-world integration-challenges.

This year’s conference showed that sometimes, it’s not about big announcements, but about steady improvements that keep things moving in the right direction. OutSystems is clearly on track, and I’m excited to see how the platform continues to grow in the future.