What is Application Modernization?

Challenges in App Modernization

Despite multiple advantages, there are challenges in app modernization of which enterprises must be aware, and therefore must stay prepared:

• Legacy system modernization often becomes complex due to a lack of documentation and multiple intricate interdependencies, thus making it hard to evaluate risks and plan robustly.
• Achieving compatibility across all technologies while preserving data integrity, functionality, and seamless portability is particularly challenging during the migration phase of the process.
• Another frequently encountered challenge within an enterprise is the resistance to change from stakeholders. This is because employees become accustomed to existing systems.
• Budgetary constraints on investment related to development, testing, deployment of new technologies, infrastructure upgrades, operational disruptions, and training make it difficult to drive app modernization initiatives smoothly.

Understanding and overcoming these issues requires a well-crafted strategy with careful planning from top to granular levels, effective change management, open communication, deeper stakeholder engagement strategies, and collaboration across business and IT departments.

Key Strategies for App Modernization, Tools, and Technologies

Today, app modernization has become an integral feature of an enterprise’s overall digital transformation strategy. Research has projected that these services will grow to nearly US $32.8 billion by 2027.

It is important to orchestrate a long-term app modernization roadmap to manage an enterprise’s resources effectively. The roadmap details a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the application’s technical attributes and their relations and interdependencies with other applications and systems, the overall application’s fitness for cloud migration, and the expected ROI of such a modernization program, among other criteria.

The successful execution of app modernization initiatives requires the implementation of robust strategies and thoroughly tested approaches, sustained by specialized tools and technologies.

The following approaches and patterns can be considered for application modernization:

• Refactoring: The aim of refactoring is to improve efficiency, enable on-demand, real-time scalability, and ease of maintainability without changing the application’s fundamental functionality. Here, precedence is given to speed and productivity. The underlying principle of this approach is to augment the application code with the least code changes required.
• Rewriting: The rebuilding or rewriting approach entails the work of reconstructing an application right from scratch to get the best cloud performance. This approach aims to make the most of the cloud or cloud-native features and on-demand scalability.
• Container orchestration: This approach is essential in aiding in the deployment of the same application across different infrastructure and environments without the need for redesigning it. Leading containerization platforms present a simple and efficient mechanism to create and deploy containers and lifecycle management.
• Microservices architecture: Microservices involve breaking down monolithic applications into smaller, loosely coupled independent services that communicate through APIs to enhance modularity and facilitate easier updates, agility, scalability, and resilience.
• Cloud migration: This strategy entails transitioning existing applications from on-premises environments to cloud platforms like Oracle, GCP, AWS or Azure. Enterprises that wish to leverage benefits such as elasticity and global scalability with improved accessibility and cost-efficiency could consider cloud-native applications, as these are specially designed to channel cloud resources optimally.
• DevOps and DevSecOps: These methodologies are essential to the app modernization journey as they enable digital product engineering for the automation of repetitive tasks. By incorporating security into the process, DevSecOps essentially helps in the implementation of integrated governance and compliance solutions.
• The API-first strategy: This approach entails using APIs as the key components in the software development process to achieve faster integration. The prime focus of this approach is on the design and documentation to create applications that are truly integrated, reusable, and interoperable.
• Tools and technologies: Without the utilization of various tools and technologies, it is impossible to achieve business transformation. They enable CI/CD pipelines, automating various software development, testing, and deployment stages, as well as continuous monitoring of user behavior and log analysis to provide valuable insight for improvements.

App Modernization Process

App modernization is a multi-staged process and typically involves the following steps:

1. Assessment and planning: The process begins with assessment and planning, with an audit of the current IT infrastructure. This stage involves evaluating existing applications for issues with integration, compatibility, and relevance. It helps to set a clear roadmap, identify modernization opportunities, prioritize workloads, and define goals.
2. Designing contemporary architecture: The next task is to design a contemporary architecture that meets the desired business and technical requirements for the present and future. This is the time to choose the best-fit strategies and techniques that combine microservices, cloud-native principles, API integration, and so on.
3. Implementation and testing: After design comes implementation and testing, where the SMEs responsible for the execution of modernization strategies (refactoring, containerization, cloud migration, etc.) make sure that they adhere to industry best practices, follow coding standards, security guidelines, and proper documentation. Development and testing go hand-in-hand with the implementation of DevOps practices, enabled by automation, to ensure that the software produced is bug-free.
4. Testing and validation: Post-implementation comes the rigorous testing and validation stage. This helps ensure that app functionalities and compatibility with other systems are not compromised, their performance is as expected, and security standards are met.
5. Deployment and monitoring: The final stage is the deployment of modernized applications into production environments. This is iterative in nature. Teams must carry out critical activities, such as monitoring performance metrics, user feedback, checking system health regularly, and evaluating evolving business requirements.

Sify’s App Modernization Services

Sify’s expertise in App Modernization Services underscores its commitment to enabling organizations to navigate their digital transformation successfully. Our unique service offerings such as Kubernetes-as-a-Service,DevSecOps, and Site Reliability Engineering ensure quicker time-to-value with enhanced visibility, control, business continuity, and customer satisfaction.

Enterprises undergoing business and digital transformation must understand that app modernization is not merely about updating technology. It is a strategic imperative that aims to enhance operational efficiency, reduce spending and speed up innovation while future-proofing businesses. It plays an instrumental role in aligning IT capabilities with strategic goals. Our comprehensive App Modernization Services are designed to deliver cost optimizations with increased productivity and spend reductions.

Contact us to learn how to achieve unmatched agility and faster time to market through legacy application modernization.