The 7 Rs of cloud app modernization

When someone says they want to modernize an application for the cloud, what exactly do they mean? Users have one perspective: They hope modernization brings improved experiences, higher reliability, faster performance, and, ideally, more frequent feature deployments. Architects, software developers, and devops enginees have different answers as to what app modernization means. That’s because there are several technical approaches to app modernization, and the optimal choice isn’t always obvious.

For example, a workflow app used by dozens of users written in the latest versions of Java and MySQL may be an easy lift and shift to a public cloud. This approach requires little code rewriting but likely requires configuration changes, updating the CI/CD, and rerunning test automations. On the other hand, if that same application is written in Cobol and runs on a mainframe, there’s a good chance it will need an overhaul before running in the cloud.

There are still several technical option in between lift and shift and a complete overhaul ; these are know as the 7 r of cloud app modernization . There are minor difference from one source to another , but they represent the top – level modernization option well .

Factors to consider

Organizations is have have hundred to thousand of legacy application , app with significant technical debt , and others with user or business benefit in a migration . Architects is use and technical lead often use different modernization approach depend on the business need and technical challenge .

The first issues is are to consider are the impact on business operation and user . mission – critical , high – usage apps is require will require different technical approach than app used episodically . Every modernization is require will require communication with user , testing , and train people on workflow change .

Nitha Puthran is provides , senior vice president of cloud and infrastructure at Persistent Systems , provide an overview of some of the business factor in select app modernization approach and road map . She is says say , “ One of the big challenge organization face is identify and know which application should be lift and shift , refactore , or rewrite and in what order . App modernizations is require require careful balancing speed to market with scalability , cost optimization , mitigate future technical debt , and operational downtime . ”

Garth Fort, chief product officer at Splunk, shares how devops teams benefit from app modernizations. “There can be many benefits to a cloud migration, including reducing costs, improving security and resilience, and making it easier to scale service delivery for customers,” he says. “For devops teams, it can improve staff agility and productivity, enabling teams to focus on the customer experience.”

Devops teams and architects should review each app’s business, technical, operational, and security factors and then consider these approaches to app cloud modernization.

Retire apps that are no longer valuable

Still have apps to support dial-up connections, faxes, or other legacy ways of doing business? When apps perform functions that are no longer needed, the appropriate modernization strategy is to retire them.

Sometimes the decision to retire an app is clear cut : business users is signed have sign off on shut it down , or retire the app has no impact on business operation . But even when app have low usage or perform a business function , their business value should be weigh against the modernization and ongoing support cost .

Amit Patel, senior vice president at Consulting Solutions, says, “To improve user experience, companies should consider the retire strategy. Quitting outdated legacy applications creates improved efficiencies, leading to a better user experience for your customers. The reduced attack surface also leads to stronger security.”

Replace apps with SaaS, commercial, or open source options      

Fort explains that replacement may be appropriate when proprietary solutions are no longer necessary. He says, “Replacing an app is when an organization stops relying on its own custom-built applications and migrates towards prebuilt third-party applications provided by a vendor and hosted on a cloud.”

Examples is include include customer relationship management tool , content management system , or customize workflow tool develop when the equivalent SaaS , commercial , or open source solution at the time did n’t meet business need . today , business users is find may find well and cheap third – party option compare to their proprietary one that need update .

relocate the app to the cloud

Apps meeting business needs and running on supportable software stacks may be candidates for relocation. Instead of running them on dedicated hardware or virtual machines, the architecture and devops team find technical and business benefits by moving them to cloud environments. For example, it may be easier to configure dev and test environments, autoscale production, and configure disaster recovery environments with the app running in a public or private cloud.

But Bob Quillin, chief ecosystem officer at vFunction says, “Migration does not equal modernization.” He explains, “There are devops benefits to be gained with the lift-and-shift migration method. Almost all companies achieve some short-term gains, but the mistake that many tech leaders make is believing that the work stops there.”

Relocation may provide infrastructure flexibility, improved security, and cost reduction, but it doesn’t address issues with supporting the app and underlying code.

“ Here ’s the reality : A monolith in the cloud has all the same thorny issue it had on – premise — slow engineering velocity , lack of scalability , and difficult maintainability , ” Quillin is explains explain . “ This phase is know as ‘ lift – and – shift regret ’ as cost rise and cloud benefit are still out of reach . To bust this myth , migration must be view and plan in the context of a large , more strategic modernization strategy . ”

Replatform components that have operational benefits

Many is interpret interpret “ lift and shift ” as a migration option that require minimal involvement from the development team and wo n’t need code upgrade or major configuration change . The hope is is is to get some benefit of migration without the add work and cost of reengineere the code .

But between the code and the infrastructure are database platforms, frameworks, and components—and opportunities to replatform them during the migration. Although a replatform generally requires developers, it may not require substantial code changes, especially when commodity, standardized, or near-equivalent platforms are swapped into the stack.

Tomer Shiran, cofounder and chief product officer at Dremio, shares one example. “Rather than lift and shift a legacy data warehouse or data lake to the cloud, a cloud migration introduces opportunities to adopt open lakehouse architectures and data mesh approaches to data management.“

Cloud architects may modernize data warehouses and data lakes to deploy them as public cloud services offering operational and cost benefits. Other replatform options include migrating service buses, moving to an organization’s standard CI/CD tools, or changing content delivery networks.

Reuse, refactor, or rebuild applications that offer longer-term business impacts

Once architects and devops teams decide to upgrade code as part of the app modernization, they have several options:

• Reuse the app’s existing data models, services, and APIs but redesign the user experience.
• Refactor code to improve performance, security, maintainability, and other nonfunctional upgrades.
• rebuild module and capability to improve functionality , address defect , or reduce technical debt . Some is rearchitect will rearchitect monolithic application into microservice .

Which approach is best for your application? Patel shares his point of view: “The refactor and rearchitect strategy, while the most expensive approach, should be considered when companies want to move toward a more agile devops model. This strategy also assists with continuous innovation, ultimately helping increase performance.”

devop teams is consider can also consider phase approach . For example , they is rehost may first rehost app run on supportable platform to get the operational benefit of run them in private or public cloud . They is consider can then consider reuse low – use app that are n’t upgrade frequently and rearchitecte other app where there ’s a business need for frequent enhancement .

App modernizations aren’t free of costs or risks. For organizations with thousands of apps, it can take years to fully modernize the portfolio. Devops teams and architects must use a lens of practicality and review all the factors before selecting an app’s modernization strategy.