Application Modernization – All You Need To Know!

– Were your organization’s current software systems developed when the cloud-first model was not in existence?

– Do you wish to advance your existing application infrastructure to keep up with technological innovation?

– Are you planning to incorporate the recent drivers of modernization like enhanced security, IoT, and AI into your organization’s current stack?

Whatever may be the reason, application modernization is the solution!

Rather than building a new application or software from scratch or buying one that is compatible with the latest tech stack, it is economical to modernize your existing systems.

This not only protects your organization’s investments but also improves productivity and overall performance.

This blog post explores application modernization in detail along with its benefits, steps, and technologies to enable successful digital transformation for businesses.

Let’s dive in!

What Is Application Modernization?

Application modernization, sometimes known as legacy modernization, is the practice of improving software or application delivery performance for an organization by updating the older software with new computing approaches.

It offers various benefits to organizations which include but are not limited to:

a) Accelerating innovation by reducing the time for app maintenance.

b) Minimizing the time to market by streamlining the app developmental process.

c) Securing workloads via built-in or updated security capabilities in an application.

d) Infusing compatibility among the applications or software even when the technology evolves.

e) Increasing efficiency by building on existing investments and retaining current processes.

Application Modernization: From Legacy Systems to Modern Systems

Application modernization includes the conversion or porting of legacy systems/applications into modern systems/applications. Let’s understand the two in-depth.

1. Legacy Systems

Legacy applications or systems are also called monolithic applications. These are outdated computing software or hardware that are still in use. These systems always meet the needs they were designed for initially. However, their older technology won’t allow interaction with a new system.

Pros of Legacy Systems:

a) Helps save the up-front investment of upgrading to a new system

b) Prevents the fear of internal employee resistance

c) Prevents the difficulty of migration into a new system

Cons of Legacy Systems:

a) The cost of maintenance is extensive

b) Each legacy system is its own data silo

c) Prevents data integration among departments

d) Compliance gets harder due to the lack of data communication

e) Have outdated data security measures

f) Doesn’t integrate with the new systems

2. Modern Systems

Modern systems or microservices architectures are modernized applications with components that are smaller, loosely coupled, and can be deployed and scaled independently of each other. These applications are capable of adapting to future innovations or changes.

Pros of Modern Systems:

a) Every app function as its own service; hence, can choose a language independently

b) Can iterate at will

c) Lower maintenance costs

d) Involves less risk while changing

e) Are capable of independent scaling

Cons of Modern Systems:

a) Risk of data loss

b) Upgrading to another application can be highly expensive

c) Users may refrain from new incorporations or changes

Steps of Application Modernization

1. Planning: Firstly, organizations must think carefully about the modernization goals of their current application. This involves discovering and accessing existing applications and creating an environment for change.

2. Implementation: Modernizing their applications require organizations to build new skills and follow an iterative approach. Here, they can change the strategy and project scope as and when necessary.

3. Operations: Application modernization is not a one-time process. Once an application is shifted to a cloud-first approach, the organization can use the involved tools and services to secure, govern, manage, and optimize future changes.

Technologies Used in Application Modernization

Numerous technologies can facilitate legacy application modernization in an organization. Let’s explore a few top ones:

1. Hybrid Cloud

This technology unifies public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise infrastructure to provide organization, management, and application portability among all three. It helps organizations achieve their technical and business objectives efficiently and cost-effectively.

2. Multi-Cloud

This technology includes multiple cloud deployments of a similar type, private or public, or sourced from various vendors. It provides new and specialized platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings and integrates them with the best-of-breed clouds for legacy IT applications.

3. Containerization

This technology involves the packaging of software codes with operating system libraries and dependencies that run to create a single container on any infrastructure consistently. The infrastructure can be a desktop, cloud, or on-premise environment.

4. Orchestration

This modernization technology automates multiple tasks as a process or flow. It introduces deployment, scaling, security efficiencies, and networking.

5. Automation

This technology facilitates consistent enterprise performance across applications and infrastructure in a hybrid environment. It helps save time and cost, initiates faster deployment, and provides a more secure environment. Furthermore, it leads to frequent and higher-quality software or application deliveries.

6. Kubernetes

This application modernization technology involves an open-source container orchestration platform. It helps automate the deployment, management, roll-outs, storage provisioning, and scaling of various legacy apps.

7. Microservices

In microservices technology, the applications are broken into small components, independent of each other. Unlike the monolithic approach where every component is built into a single piece, everything is separate here but works together to achieve a common goal.

To Wrap Up

In recent years, the IT landscape has changed beyond recognition. To keep up with the evolution, it’s key for organizations to modernize their applications. We hope that this blog post has given you some insight into the same.

As an added bonus, here’re the R’s of effective application modernization. By exercising them in your strategy, you can be sure of a successful app modernization for your organization.

a) Rehost or “lift-and-shift” to simply lift an application with no transitional changes from its previous environment to the current environment.

b) Replatform, enabling organizations to make code changes and use applications with cloud technologies.

c) Refactor to prioritize productivity and speed.

d) Rearchitect to enable cloud scalability.

e) Rebuild to recreate an app using cloud solutions.

f) Replace an application that does not meet current or future business needs.

Are You Ready to Update Your Business Apps With an Application Modernization Strategy? Contact Us!