Solutions Engineer
OCT 16, 2024 | 4 mins read
Not all organizations started as digital companies, but they have thrived for decades by continuously adapting and adopting evolving technologies while remaining competitive. Their success lies in their willingness to invest in IT infrastructure and embrace cloud development when—and where—necessary. These organizations recognize the imperative of operating in a digital world, remaining agile and responsive, and leveraging innovative technologies to support flexible and scalable infrastructure, applications, and data.
When organizational leadership recognizes that outdated systems are slowing progress, they use technology implementation and application modernization services to overcome these challenges.
A 2023 survey by IGD company Foundry found that 87% of business leaders are focusing on modernizing critical applications to gain a competitive edge.Moreover, according to a report on marketsandmarkets.com, “the application modernization services market size is expected to grow from $15.2 billion in 2022 to $32.8 billion by 2027 at a CAGR—Compound Annual Growth Rate—of 16.7% during the forecast period.”
The demand for elasticity, resiliency, ease of deployment and management, as well as flexibility drives the adoption of modernization and migration processes. These technologies enable high-performing software development setups, empowering companies to deliver measurable and sustainable outcomes such as:
- Improving customer experience and loyalty with differentiated services;
- Disrupting industry norms and staying ahead of competitors;
- Accelerating innovation and bringing new ideas to market quickly;
- Reducing costs, speeding up time-to-market, and increasing the volume of digital experiences; and
- Complying with regulatory requirements promptly.
The critical questions are more than whether to modernize; they are about what to modernize and how to do it effectively. And which business areas or applications will yield the most significant impact or value when modernized?
This article will address these “what” and “how” questions concerning application modernization. We will share the processes and best practices required to make room for innovation. But first, let’s understand what application modernization entails.
Understanding Application Modernization
Application modernization refers to updating and transforming legacy software to align with current business requirements. This requires developing a strategy, adopting modern methods, and using advanced tools to achieve the speed and agility legacy systems need to improve. Modernization reduces the footprint of internal servers and associated costs, enhancing agility, speed, scalability, reliability, and security.
Ideal modernization principles include using microservices and APIs to build new apps and ensure continuity, leveraging containers and serverless for portability and cost efficiency, and employing DevOps and DevSecOps with automated CI/CD pipelines for rapid and secure innovation.
The Challenges of Operating with Legacy Applications
Many business executives recognize the need for modernization but find various reasons to delay updates. While these justifications are valid in the short term, they can ultimately harm the organization.
Neglecting to modernize legacy systems poses numerous dangers to running business operations effectively:
- The Risk of Losing Customers: Customers accustomed to cutting-edge technology expect the latest applications and features. Failing to meet these expectations can drive your customers to competitors offering more modern solutions.
- High Maintenance Costs: What the short-term costs of maintaining legacy systems might seem acceptable—and reasonable—these expenses accumulate over time. Ultimately, modernizing your applications is critical for long-term sustainability.
- Lack of Vendor Support: Many legacy systems are no longer supported by their original vendors, making troubleshooting challenging. While third-party support might be available, it will be costly and become increasingly unlikely as the technology ages.
- Reduced Innovation: Relying on outdated software can create data siloes and limit access to critical information, inhibiting decision-making and slowing down innovation. This can reduce the organization’s ability to adapt to market changes and introduce new products or services.
In summary, clinging to outdated systems can jeopardize customer satisfaction, increase costs, limit support options, and impede innovation. Addressing these challenges through application modernization is vital for maintaining a competitive edge in today’s fast-paced business environment.
The Benefits of Application Modernization
When outdated software is used to support business operations, your risks and expenses will likely increase while your business agility decreases. Let’s examine the benefits of modernizing your applications:
- Improved Mobility: Modernizing legacy applications facilitates the transition to a hybrid cloud environment, allowing you to run applications anywhere.
- Increased Flexibility: Leveraging cloud native microservices-based architectures increases scalability and flexibility, opening up many business and technical benefits.
- Improved Time-to-Market: Application modernization enables more frequent and high-quality software delivery by adopting DevOps, microservices, and automated processes.
- Reduced Costs: Moving to cloud-based resources shifts expenses from CapEx to OpEx, allowing for dynamic resource provisioning and reducing idle maintenance costs.
- Improved Agility and Resilience: Modernization enhances business agility and resilience. The cloud’s environment parity provides portable code and allows it to meet client requirements faster. Furthermore, multi-region deployments with integrated backups ensure improved IT resilience, responding to issues within minutes or hours rather than days or months.
Methods of Application Modernization
When considering how to modernize software applications, there are several methods to choose from:
- Rehost: Move the application from its current location—an on-premises mainframe in a data center—to a cloud-based infrastructure.
- Re-Platform: Change the operating system by migrating program code, which requires software architecture and application code modifications.
- Refactor: Optimize existing code for improved functionality on new platforms and cloud infrastructure.
- Rearchitect: Completely overhaul the software architecture to introduce new features and functionalities.
- Rebuild: Start the project from the bottom up, replicating the original functions and features.
- Replace: Eliminate legacy technology and invest in a new solution.
Selecting the best method for application modernization depends on understanding your organization's unique needs and goals. Evaluate the current state of your applications, weigh the pros and cons of each approach, and consider long-term objectives.
Modernizing Legacy Applications
Maintaining your organization’s competitive advantage and market share depends on how much you modernize your applications to meet consumer demands and leverage the continuously evolving digital landscape. Transitioning from outdated programs to contemporary architecture ensures uninterrupted use and real value. A critical step in this process is to thoroughly understand the specifics of your applications and their interactions with other systems.
When considering how to modernize a legacy application, you can divide this process into four steps:
- Assessment: Begin with a deep application portfolio readiness assessment. Identify which applications are ready to move to the cloud and which need refactoring. Determine the business, technical, functional, and financial significance of migrating your applications to the cloud.
- Build: Based on this assessment, plan and implement cloud native approaches and best-of-breed languages and frameworks. Develop modernized applications using loosely coupled microservices, starting with an API-first approach with orchestration and automation capabilities.
- Deploy: Use a CI/CD pipeline to deploy code quickly and reliably automatically. Package your microservices with containers or serverless technologies and use Kubernetes (an orchestration platform) to provide portability, scalability, and faster application deployment.
- Run: Develop a standard management and operations approach to run the application seamlessly and resolve problems quickly. Implement governance and compliance from the start and integrate monitoring and observability to understand the health of your distributed architectures. Set up SLAs (Service Level Agreements) with well-defined Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level Indicators (SLIs) to ensure incidents are handled promptly and based on data-driven insights.
Mitigating Legacy Application Modernization Risks
When dealing with very old systems, the decision to modernize legacy applications might seem straightforward and simple. However, modernizing these systems can sometimes increase costs and risk compromising quality. Here are three steps to help you navigate these challenges successfully:
- Prioritize Needs over Perceptions: Focus on actual company requirements rather than preconceived notions about traditional systems.
- Audit for Alignment: Identify gaps between business requirements and current application—or platform—capabilities, leveraging existing systems where possible.
- Assess Total Cost of Ownership: Consider long-term costs, including transitioning applications and their dependencies, to prioritize projects that offer the most value while limiting risks.
By following these guidelines, organizations can effectively navigate the complexities of modernizing legacy applications and ensure a high-quality and cost-effective transition.
Application Modernization Best Practices
Many companies have successfully used application modernization initiatives to cut costs and boost performance. However, it stands to reason that it is challenging for companies using the same legacy applications for many years to know where to start. Therefore, here are five best practices for IT and business leaders looking to begin modernizing their organization’s applications:
- Pinpoint Application Modernization Challenges: Before starting—as an IT or business leader—you should ask: “What issues am I attempting to resolve?” Identifying pain points like poor performance, inaccessible data, or security flaws in legacy applications helps keep modernization efforts focused and valuable.
- Identify Value Creation Opportunities: After addressing initial pain points, actively look for ways to add value by introducing new features or improving existing capabilities. Modernizing apps often results in enhanced agile development processes, enabling teams to quickly update and improve the user experience.
- Start with Smaller, Manageable Tasks: Only attempt to solve some outstanding issues at a time. Begin with smaller challenges and build on early successes to show the value of modernizing the application and generate enthusiasm for the project among employees.
- Align with Business Goals: Ensure the application modernization efforts are aligned with business objectives rather than just focusing on technological improvements. This focus should be highlighted in all development team meetings throughout the project.
- Utilize Partner Expertise: Collaborate with experienced development and deployment partners like Fiorano to avoid common pitfalls. Early assistance from knowledgeable, experienced partners can position your company for success in its modernization journey.
Conclusion
The demand for high-tech applications with seamless functionality is growing, and organizations that fail to innovate will struggle to stay competitive. Therefore, embrace innovation and modernize your organization’s legacy applications. Modernizing your applications allows your organization to leverage the latest technological advancements and upgrade outdated legacy systems to new heights.
Consider consulting with an experienced application modernization services provider like Fiorano to explore all opportunities. This strategic move can ensure your company remains at the forefront of technological advancements and maintains a competitive edge in the marketplace.
