Application modernization draws a parallel between the operational complexity and future of an organization. Business requirements keep changing and they need to transform into a digital model for realizing opportunities, which seemed impractical before cloud computing. Cloud application modernization opens doors to faster time-to-market, compliance, performance and technology redundancies. It is a constant strive for organizations to keep up with technology advancements.
The legacy application modernization services saw an upsurge in demand as cumulative enhancements grew to become complex monoliths that are difficult to maintain. Organizations began moving their applications to the cloud after realizing that the dynamics are at odds and reevaluating applications’ current state is imperative. The path to application modernization differs on the basis of three key influencers, namely, the application archetype, current state, and objectives.
The Path to Application Modernization
Application Archetype
The application archetype represents the pattern that acts as the model for other applications with similar characteristics. An enterprise application modernization leverages a mix of approaches. Organizations must consider their application modernization objective to enhance user experience and time-to=market for an UI application archetype. Once this is determined, estimations, impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis are undertaken.
Current State
An existing application’s design, code quality, technology stack and architecture can lead to varied demand for application modernization services. An in-depth understanding of the current state of applications helps baseline the as-is/current architecture. This can be then compared to ‘would be’ architecture for identifying gaps and changes needed for a successful enterprise application modernization.
Objectives
Application modernization objectives are usually grounded in technical reasons. Some of the common objectives behind an application modernization strategy include creating innovative distinguishable offerings, improving customer experience, supporting growth, improving operational efficiency, cost optimization, accelerated time-to-market, improving resilience, and reducing technical complexity. Together, these objectives help organizations realize application modernization’s target architecture.
Application Modernization Begins With Application Assessment
Having detailed information about your inventory is the most common way to start implementing the application modernization strategy. Once the details are collected, the applications must be plotted in an X-Y axis of difficulty or ease as well as potentially increased value of applications when modernization. The potential value can be assigned based on the criticality of the application for the organizations’ future and customer experience.
The applications that fall into the category of high value but low efforts will be least contentious candidates to be considered at the start of an enterprise application modernization. The most difficult decisions to be made are faced in case of high-value applications, which are difficult to migrate. The approaches to application modernization aforementioned can help reduce these risks as well as optimize costs.
All in All
Compared to the big bang approach, an interactive, incremental application modernization approach is much better. It brings the architecture close to desired state, thereby leveraging investment more quickly without the need for the whole application to be modernized. According to Gartner, nearly 90% of enterprise applications to be ignored in terms of sufficient modernization investment.
Organizations must focus their modernization efforts on old platforms instead of concentrating on high-value business capabilities. Organizations that take business-focused approaches, divide their work to target critical business capabilities with see growth in multiple waves.