Developing a Pioneering Data Modeling Solution

The Client

Hackolade Studio is a next-generation data modeling tool for SQL and NoSQL databases, APIs, and data exchange formats. It is designed for data architects, data modelers, developers, DBAs, data engineers, analysts, and anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of their data structures.

Hackolade's expertise and innovation are recognized by major global brands and organizations. Esteemed clients like American Express, ASML, DHL, Pepsi, Tinder, Vodafone — to name a few — turn to Hackolade for their polyglot data modeling, metadata-as-code, domain-driven data modeling, and model-driven API generation needs. These features enable users to effectively work with big data and create mission-critical applications, plus in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, blockchain, and more.

Binary Studio has been a fantastic partner, not just a service provider.

I view them as a part of the team, and appreciate their enthusiasm and interest in our product. From our first interaction, Binary Studio proved to be the most enthusiastic vendor.

Developing a Pioneering Data Modeling Solution-1

Pascal Desmarets

Founder and CEO of Hackolade

Developing a Pioneering Data Modeling Solution-2 BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

“

Binary Studio is an ideal software development partner and our experience working with them has been fantastic

Pascal Desmarets - Founder & CEO /

Hackolade

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Objectives

Hackolade was founded by an experienced IT strategy consultant who could not find a product on the market able to assist with the database design challenges he was facing. The founder had a clear vision for creating an innovative product that would model MongoDB documents. To bring this vision to life, Hackolade needed a technology partner capable of transforming the detailed specifications and requirements into a robust technical solution.

As part of the proof of concept (POC) phase, several software development companies were evaluated. The project's complexity demanded a deep understanding of the underlying technologies, and the Binary Studio team proved their ability to meet these challenging requirements.

Since the collaboration between Hackolade and Binary Studio began, several key project objectives have been pursued:

01

Validating product-market fit and gathering user insights through an MVP

Initially as a startup, Hackolade's primary goal was to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) with an optimal budget. This MVP aimed to validate the original idea and gather real user feedback which would be pivotal in guiding future product development decisions.
02

Enhancing functionality to support different data architectures and use cases

After launching at the MongoDB World 2016 conference in New York and receiving enthusiastic feedback from the community, including interest from several prominent companies, Hackolade saw a growing demand for support of additional databases. Our objective was to expand supported databases to address these customers’ requests.
03

Building a technology-agnostic polyglot data modeling tool

As Hackolade's customer base and the technology landscape continued to evolve rapidly, it became essential to stay ahead of the market. To respond to the needs of Hackolade users, our focus shifted to support the continuous addition of new features. This included ensuring consistent reliability, addressing complex use cases, and rapidly deploying fixes.

Solution and Outcome

When our partnership with Hackolade began, we worked closely with the founder to iteratively add new features based on user feedback, adopting an agile development methodology. This customer-centric approach allowed us to quickly respond to requests and deliver continuously to Hackolade, which proved instrumental in helping scale successfully.
As Hackolade grew, our partnership evolved into a collaborative structure that leverages the strengths of both companies at various steps in the process. Hackolade's product management and software architects define the product vision and requirements, while Binary Studio's team is responsible for the development of new software functionalities delivered continuously to Hackolade. Hackolade also performs the necessary transformation of the source code delivered by Binary Studio, such as quality assurance testing, integration of various components, building the application for different platforms, packaging, and preparing for distribution.

ReactJS

Typescript

Electron

Stage 1
The initial release of Hackolade enabled users to create and maintain visual data models, which could then be exported as MongoDB schema validation scripts. It was built to be deployed as a multi-platform desktop application for Windows, macOS, and Linux, harnessing the power of modern web technologies such as ReactJS and Electron framework. Electron was chosen for its capability to efficiently develop cross-platform desktop applications using the modern JavaScript stack.
Other features included in the MVP release were:
- A user-friendly interface for visual modeling tools, compliant with JSON Schema.
- Reverse-engineering functionality that allows the extraction of data models from existing MongoDB databases.
- Forward-engineering functionality to generate database structures from visual models.
- Compatibility with various MongoDB versions, including support for connections using advanced authentication mechanisms like LDAP and Kerberos.
- Automatic generation of human-readable documentation for data models.
Stage 2
Following the successful MVP release, Hackolade's product garnered substantial interest from large companies. Encouraged by this positive market feedback, we began enhancing the basic functionality, transitioning towards a full-featured platform.
A key initial expansion was the addition of JSON Schema support and two other popular NoSQL databases: Couchbase and DynamoDB. These were integrated as core functionalities of the product.
As the demand for support of various databases grew, we faced a challenge: how to add new integrations without compromising the performance of the desktop application. The solution was to introduce these new integrations in the form of plugins.
This approach led to a continuously expanding roster of plugins and supported databases, further enhancing the versatility and reach of Hackolade as a data modeling tool.
Stage 3
As Hackolade grew to support more databases and protocols, the need for flexible modeling emerged. Users wanted to define structures once and use them in different schema syntaxes. Hackolade responded with a groundbreaking update: technology-independent polyglot data modeling. This allowed users to create versatile data structures compatible with various technologies, including denormalization and complex data types. Such a master polyglot model not only facilitated versatility but also provided a unified approach to managing diverse types of models across multiple databases. Additionally, Hackolade enhanced its export functionalities, enabling data models to be translated for any target technology into JSON Schema, and to generate Swagger/OpenAPI specifications for any data model designed within the platform.
Further enhancing user experience, Hackolade integrated with Git repository hubs. This feature simplified peer reviews within the app and replaced text diffs with visual data model changes, making reviews accessible for a wide range of professionals.
Additionally, Hackolade launched a cross-browser web app, complementing its desktop application. Unique in its backend-free design, the single-page app is distributed on the edge via Azure Front Door or AWS CloudFront. This approach gives users complete control over their data models, combining the convenience of an online application with the security of local data storage. Users enjoy the latest Hackolade updates without installation or software deployment hassles, maintaining full control over their data.
Stage 4
Our primary focus throughout our collaboration with Hackolade has been on continuously improving our development process while ensuring the app's security and reliability.
Today, our team is focused on implementing user feature requests while meeting the challenge of integrating with the complex security setups of enterprise customers. This includes support for proxies, third-party services and advanced authentication systems such as LDAP and Kerberos. Our goal is to facilitate smooth connections to different databases across various environments.
We also manage technical debt by regularly updating our framework dependencies and using tools like Dependabot to identify vulnerabilities in external packages. Recently, the application codebase received a significant upgrade with the adoption of TypeScript which has vastly improved the developer experience and code maintainability. Our proactive strategy in managing technology and ensuring quality is essential for upholding the security and dependability of Hackolade's application.

Developing a Pioneering Data Modeling Solution-7

Developing a Pioneering Data Modeling Solution-8

The Power of Product-Led Growth

We are proud to be the core development team contributing to Hackolade Studio, an innovative and technically advanced solution that exemplifies product-led growth. This approach prioritizes creating value for customers first and focuses on designing for the end-user. Hackolade is dynamically evolving and constantly addressing the day-to-day challenges of users and aiding in their success.
Starting as a simple MVP focused on MongoDB data modeling, Hackolade has rapidly become a leading data modeling tool. It is now utilized by major brands and government agencies worldwide, including American Express, ASML, DHL, Pepsi, Tinder, Vodafone, the European Commission, US Social Security Administration, and many others.
Our journey with Hackolade reflects our commitment to quality, transparency, and the ability to evolve with the changing technological landscape.

About Binary Studio

Binary Studio is a boutique software development company, regularly praised for its unique blend of engineering excellence and product ownership that enables its clients to build robust and scalable software products.
With our development team made up of top 0.5% international tech talent, we build web and mobile platforms using Node.js, .NET, React Native, Flutter, and integrating AI and ML. We also offer full-cycle QA and project management services to ensure the efficient delivery.
Our clients see us as a trusted partner dedicated to turning visions into great products. This is proven by 200+ delivered projects, more than two decades of business excellence, and stellar customer reviews.

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