What does app modernization mean?

What does app modernisation mean?

We live in a world where if companies don’t digitally transform, they will not survive.  As part of this transformation most organisations are struggling with the operational cost and risk of maintaining legacy applications in their environments.  While most organisations are now adopting a ‘digital first’ approach to internal and external processes, many still work with outdated applications, that don’t mesh with the modern way business works. 
App Modernisation is the process of taking outdated and struggling applications and updating them to create business value and function, through new features, better automation and improved capabilities and integration to other platforms in the business. 
For many businesses, completely re-shaping and revamping business practice with new applications is daunting and unrealistic. App Modernisation allows for legacy applications to be updated for modern systems, and allows a business to develop new ways of working in a digital first world.
Modern applications hosted in the cloud do everything your existing applications could and so much more. Microsoft Azure is highly secure, highly compliant and massively scalable, capable of elastically handing even dramatic spikes in demand. Security is assured, with business continuity and built-in disaster recovery a standard feature of Microsoft’s world-leading cloud platform. 
Cloud solutions are accessible from anywhere, on any device, unleashing your applications and enabling your workforce to be more productive, more often. Eliminate hardware and the associated maintenance overheads for a reduced and predictable total cost of ownership cost and enjoy an immediate performance boost.

 

 

Are you ready to modernise?

So how do you identify a system that needs developing? Real world examples of a system in desperate need of modernisation can be as simple as everyday annoyances, that you can be overlooking.
These are all questions to ask yourself (and your team) during the process of identifying a system that needs work. Any of these issues stated are seriously worth reviewing, as they can all have major impacts on your business functionality and safety.

The approaches to app modernisation

Modernising your applications can take one of 5 forms, dependent on the requirements of the project at hand. These are:
Increased productivity

Rehost

A traditional lift and shift approach of moving the application off existing on-premise hardware with no code changes.  This will remove technical debt in the form of operational overhead of managing the underlying hardware.

Security

Refactor

Transformational migration, by keeping existing codebase, but starting to leverage built in cloud native platforms (PaaS) and containers which enable the application to gain agility and elasticity.

 

Accessibility

Rearchitect

Rearchitecting focus’s on modifying the codebase and extending the application functionality to make the future application more robust and easier to maintain.  This will also incorporate platform services, and the use of microservices with containers.

 

Cost

Rebuild

If the effort and complexity involved in transforming a legacy application is cost or risk prohibitive, then we would look to develop a new application from the ground up using native Azure cloud platforms and services.
Current state

Replace

If the effort and complexity involved in transforming a legacy application is cost or risk prohibitive, then we would look to develop a new application from the ground up using native Azure cloud platforms and services
While simple application modernisation projects can be completed with a relatively simple rehost, more detailed projects can include developing new architecture, all the way up to full application replacement. It’s really dependent on your requirements, and current infrastructure in place.

Without the necessary expertise or experience, it’s hard to identify which approach is required for your business. Many companies bring in external agencies such as Lancom to make these identifications and execute these projects for them. While a necessary operation for many businesses, App Modernisation isn’t one that can be taken lightly and just passed onto the intern to complete.

Key benefits of modernising your applications with Lancom & Microsoft Azure

So what does working with a partner look like while completing an App Modernisation project?
Working With Lancom

Lancom is one of New Zealand’s Leading Technology Managed Service Provider, and is honoured to also be a key partner for Microsoft Azure, helping businesses leverage new technology and capabilities to get closer to their digital goals.
 
Being a partner of Microsoft Azure gives you the assurance that Lancom is:

  • Working hand-in-hand with Microsoft as an Azure Gold Partner to stay up the date with the latest Azure solutions and platforms
  • Living and breathing the ‘DevOps’ world, partnering with their customers to deliver the best outcomes
  • Taking their time to cultivate change rather than rush to a non-optimal solution that won’t provide the necessary improvement being sought
  • Providing world-class solutions that take into consideration all aspects of your businesses requirements
  • A hands-on, partner-focused relationship rather than an external, un-tailored service

The benefits of Azure as a platform

sql-db

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

  • The Azure SQL Database is a fully managed relational Database-As-A-Service (DBaaS) managing millions of production databases across 38 data centres around the world. Azure SQL Database supports an enormous range of applications and workloads, from managing transactional data to driving data-intensive, mission-critical applications requiring advanced data processing at global scale.

  • Features of Azure SQL Database include Managed Instance, automated Data Migration Service, built-in Intelligent Optimisation, Automatic Tuning and Adaptive Query Processing

any-platform
Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C
  • Built on Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory B2C is a highly-secure cloud identity platform that handles billions of authentications per day. It delivers trusted scale, reliability, and availability for all customer-facing applications. And Azure Active Directory B2C is the key to creating fully customisable experiences, while protecting identities at the same time. Built-in policies are supplied as standard, but you can create your own and integrate with CRM databases, analytics tools and account verification services.
portal-monitoring
Azure Application Insights
  • You can’t manage unless you can measure. Application Insights is an extensible Application Performance Management (APM) service for web developers on multiple platforms. It monitors live web applications, automatically detects performance anomalies and offers powerful analytics tools for issue diagnosis and insight into how your app is actually used. Application Insights helps continuously improve performance and usability, integrating with DevOps processes and a variety of development tools. It can monitor and analyse telemetry from mobile apps by integrating with Visual Studio App Center.
high-productivity
Azure App Service
  • Integrate Azure App Service into your existing frameworks for a serious acceleration of developer productivity. That comes with capabilities including continuous integration, live-site debugging and Microsoft’s Visual Studio Integrated Developer Environment. Azure App Service goes further, with an ecosystem of prebuilt apps, APIs, and connectors at your fingertips on the Azure Marketplace. Deploy updates easily with integrated CI/CD capabilities with Visual Studio Team Services, Bitbucket, Docker Hub, and GitHub.
1024px-Power_bi_logo_black.svg
Azure Power BI
  • Applications are all about data: access, use and creation. Release the hidden value of data with apps hosted on the Azure cloud: with Azure services and Power BI, apply analytics generate reports for provide real-time business insights. Whether your data processing straightforward or complex, single-sourced or massively scaled, warehoused, or real-time, Azure and Power BI have the built-in connectivity and integration to bring your business intelligence efforts to life.

New call-to-action

 

Our best proof comes from the solutions we delivered to our customers. Find out what they have to say about our app modernisation solutions:

InfoTools Testimonial
HRV Testimonial

Want to talk about your Legacy Apps and bringing them to the cloud?

Walk your first modernisation mile with Lancom's app modernisation workshop. 

Find out more

29 Enfield Street Mount Eden, Auckland 1024

60/574 Plummer Street, Port Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3207

New Zealand (+64) 09 377 8282
Australia (+61)  1300 941 875