MACH Alliance: a global movement

What is the MACH Alliance?

To define MACH Alliance, we must start by understanding the acronym ("M", "A", "C", "H").

The drivers of this alliance believe that the development of eCommerce platforms should be based on a Microservices ("M") architecture. Connected through API calls ("A"), allowing them to interact with cloud-based servers ("C") of each provider; managing everything from a headless CMS ("H"), breaking the dependency of operating content under backend constraints.

You may be wondering what kind of services are offered? And the important thing to note is that this alliance does not aim to impose any specific solution over others. On the contrary, it seeks that alternatives adopt this MACH approach. In this way, companies and businesses have the freedom to select the stack that best suits their needs, and suppliers share their innovations so that the entire ecosystem benefits.

"We believe the only way (to address change) is to have a software ecosystem that provides brands with a flexible, truly open, and future-proof architecture." Manifesto - MACH Alliance

MACH drives a free web development philosophy.

Did you know that the MACH Alliance is just over a year old? That's right, it's an emerging initiative, but one that, from its genesis, garnered attention in the eCommerce world. They did not invent the wheel or impose a new unique technology, but rather, they changed the paradigm of understanding the relationship between partners that are part of the ecosystem of technology solutions for companies.

With the idea of helping businesses to take advantage of the most innovative technologies available and in the quest to break with dependence on single solutions or suppliers, MACH states that the decisions about which programming language, which technology, and which functionalities should be made by each company according to its needs.

In this way, MACH solutions are available for the components that each application requires; CMS, a search engine, a shopping cart, or a payment system. Whatever it is, choose the one that best fits your requirements and integrate it without needing several months of development.

The microservices approach to eCommerce

A microservices architecture is one where an application is composed of several smaller services implemented independently. From a user perspective, the platform works as a whole, and it would be difficult to notice which part is independent of others.

However, this modular idea simplifies integrations from the server-side and reduces complexity on the backend by not requiring local installations and internal dependencies. As a general rule, microservices are cloud-native, so they have their own servers and resources.

The magic of this architecture is that it allows brands to incorporate features, content, and services much more quickly than if the development teams themselves were in charge of creating them. This helps companies to address changes as specific tasks without resisting or avoiding them due to the limitations of a monolithic platform.

Benefits of incorporating a microservices architecture from MACH

The flexibility offered by this approach regarding functionalities translates into relevant competitive advantages in eCommerce platforms if we compare them to monolithic solutions and, in general, to any system that restricts integrations to its own options.

Three are the main benefits that we can highlight:

• Cloud-Native; cloud-based microservices architecture does not expose your brand to service drops due to abrupt increases in traffic since each integration will scale as demand grows. They are designed to respond and scale in this way, so no VAT-free day or BlackFriday will pose a threat to the availability of your store.
• Headless; implies that the frontend and backend are decoupled, so modifications on either side do not determine or condition the other, freeing developers and content editors from bottlenecks in the iteration of incorporating new products and features. It even makes it possible to have multiple frontends -something key in omnichannel- for the same backend.
• API-First; as a basis for each new integration to be performed from a REST protocol, facilitating communication between systems and simplifying the way you build your platform; allowing you to implement first-level digital experiences, where each attribute of your platform is a specialized provider. Only the best for the people who prefer you.

A growing partnership

As we told you initially, today, the MACH Alliance is a movement led by a non-profit organization. Each member of both the board of directors and the work teams are participants from different companies and suppliers that, to outside eyes, would-be competitors. But in the mission to build a new way of doing business, they manage to collaborate and sit together with a view to improving the digital experience globally.

MACH Alliance keeps its ecosystem open to all companies that wish to join. For this purpose, it has the MACH Certification, which allows differentiating those who have it as a future-proof technology since they comply with and promote the MACH principles: flexibility, simple API-based interoperability, the versatility of alternatives, and, above all, continuous updates.

At Reign, we believe in the idea of MACH; we believe that each component and integration to your system should be independent and functionally separate from the rest, which in internal terms means total freedom to create. This allows us to have the best suppliers and even replace them with our own developments if your organization has already reached sufficient maturity.