Legacy infrastructure requires modernization. And the rapid evolution of modern technologies is forcing organizations to push the boundaries and modernize their legacy infrastructure and services. Thus, enterprises worldwide have started re-architecting their legacy line-of-business (LOB) applications using state-of-the-art cloud-based services such as Microsoft Azure.
Organizations today are experiencing significant gaps between service offerings and customer expectations. So, to bridge this gap, organizations must re-architect legacy products and turn towards the adoption of digital transformation. But before transforming your legacy products and services digitally, you may want to know:
- Why you should move legacy apps to the cloud?
- What are the common barriers to app modernization?
- What are the right tools and technologies to modernize legacy apps?
If you are seeking answers to these questions and are willing to modernize your apps using advanced tools and technology, then this blog post is for you.
Moving legacy applications to the cloud
Modernizing apps or services is not just about re-engineering the products and services, and moving them to the cloud. It is about the magical thing called ‘digital transformation’ and the changes you make to your products and services to make it more agile and faster.
In this digital era, every modern organization must move their legacy applications to the cloud and move it quickly to meet new-age business needs. And for transitioning legacy apps to the cloud platform, it is imperative to know how maturity through the cloud story works. By knowing this, you can quickly identify at which stage your organization stands. Generally, the cloud maturity model for app modernization mainly comprises of four stages.
Existing apps on-premises: This is the first stage from where you start your app modernization journey with a set of existing applications on-premises.
Lift and shift: In this stage, you get your apps or services into the cloud infrastructure. This means you should deploy your apps to VMs in the cloud.
Cloud optimized apps: In this stage, you need to modernize your apps with new-age technologies like Azure container services. For this, you need to carry out the containerization process.
App modernized: This is the final stage in which you will have entirely modernized apps on your hand. And you can really start seeing things like serverless capabilities, functions, events, etc.
Inherent challenges during app modernization
The skill gap: In the era of digitization, the skills required to design, build and maintain legacy technologies are aging out. So, in order to modernize your apps and keep up with the current trends, all you need to do is to eliminate that skill gap and enhance your technical expertise of your IT professionals or hire third-party experts.
The digital leap: Migrating legacy systems and apps to advanced technology platforms and turning your business into a ‘digital enterprise’ invites a bunch of serious problems and demands a lot of things. For instance, it requires IT modernization, a digital-first strategy, smart tools, well-designed projects and much more.
The balancing act: Balancing performance, stability and improvement in response timelines are very challenging when transitioning legacy apps to the cloud. App modernization, if not done right and with the apt tools, then you cannot attain faster time-to-market without compromising stability.
The cost constraint: Modernization apps require a great deal of investment that includes expenses to scale systems, costs associated with the technology platform, system maintenance, etc. Moreover, if modernization is not done using the right technology platform, it could be a costly affair for you.
The data ready: Unlocking the Big Data opportunities that include data retrieval, storage, and analysis has become a key concern for organizations today. And when it comes to a data platform to access the relevant data in seconds for app modernization, organizations often fail to choose the right data platform.
How Azure containers can support app modernization
The process of modernizing apps using containers is called ‘containerization.’ Containers are the zip drive of the future that effectively carries a code or a package from one computing environment to another. App modernization using Microsoft Azure containers is one of the best ways to digitize your LOB apps. It enables you to get to market faster and with greater agility.
Moreover, modernizing apps using Azure containers require less or no code, which means you can keep your app running at scale without requiring any app infrastructure. For instance, Azure Container Instances (ACI). It does not demand any infrastructure or orchestrator, and you can efficiently deploy and run containers with a single command.
The global app modernization market size is forecasted to stem from USD 11.4 Bn in the year 2020 to USD 24.8 Bn by the year 2025, at a CAGR of 16.8% during the forecast period. – MarketsandMarkets
Azure containers can help you to remove huge dependencies on the underlying infrastructure and create independently deployable, comparatively smaller components. These containers make the app modernization process much faster and more efficient as it brings together everything from products and services to third-party apps.
Wherever you are in your app modernization journey, Azure containers will help you to accelerate the process while providing the utmost security. App modernization using Azure containers not only enables you to bring a culture of digital transformation and automation but also help you to achieve the most substantial benefits of the cloud.
Benefits of modernizing applications using Azure containers
- Faster app modernization and DevOps agility
- Enhanced density and lower deployment cost
- Improved time-to-market and reduction in IT admin
- Better security protocols and improved productivity
Start your app modernization journey today!
Transitioning from legacy apps, services, or products to the digital world is no child’s play, but it is a daunting, risky, labor-intensive process. There are hundreds or thousands of tools available in the market for app modernization. But you cannot just randomly pick any tool or technology to modernize your apps.
Modernizing your legacy applications makes sense when done right, using the right technology platform and the right expertise. Our competent and certified experts can help you to streamline your app modernization journey, from analyzing the current situation to app re-engineering, enabling you to leverage Azure containers benefits.
