With the focus on remaining competitive in today’s overcrowded digital markets, updating applications has become a key to everlasting business success. Transforming existing software with new technologies can not only improve the app’s functionality but also satisfy the evolving user needs and expectations.
Despite the reasons for revamping outdated systems can be specific to each organization, the primary benefits of app modernization are as follows:
- Security and reliability. During modification, companies can implement the latest safety standards to guarantee that sensitive user data is protected. Moreover, as recent architecture principles are more resilient, they can minimize the risk of downtime and boost general application stability.
- Performance and scalability. Cloud migration allows apps to manage data more efficiently and handle more traffic, resulting in seamless user experiences. Meanwhile, microservices and containerization can ensure that the app can expand both horizontally and vertically.
- Cost optimization. Upgraded software is more money-saving and requires less maintenance. That’s why companies can free up valuable resources for innovation and other important initiatives.
Red Hat’s research has shown that 41% of firms have difficulties with choosing the right tactics for revamping their apps. Our comprehensive guide explores the key approaches for improving outdated systems, the process of their execution, as well as the tools and services that can facilitate this transformation.
How to modernize applications?
Main application modernization strategies
There are 6 app modernization strategies: rehost, replatform, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, and replace, differentiated based on the business goals and the code condition. To assist you with making an informed decision, we provide their detailed descriptions. The methods are listed according to the state of the software and the expected investments the company is ready to make, starting from minor adjustments to radical changes.
- Rehost
Rehosting, also known as “lift and shift,” aims to enhance an app’s financial efficiency. To be successfully implemented, it requires repositioning to a new environment without modifications in the architecture or system’s logic. For example, the existing infrastructure can be migrated from on-premises to the cloud and use its storage, data processing, and network resources. As rehost involves no alterations to the program, it’s the quickest tactic and has no risks of disrupting your business operations. Besides, it can be used separately or as a part of a complex transformation procedure in combination with other approaches.
Benefits: The primary advantage of the rehost strategy is the utilization of distributed computing resources, which can reduce unnecessary expenses. What is more, it presupposes minimal changes to your application. So, its functionality and performance won’t have noticeable incongruities for the end-users.
Drawbacks: If your app has technical debt, this method won’t help you to overcome it. Since its code has not been revised, performance and security improvements aren’t expected.
When to choose?
Rehosting is an excellent option when you want to avoid making substantial changes to your software’s logic and structure. It can be due to decent code quality, lack of resources, or other reasons. It’s especially useful when you need to migrate quickly. For example, if you are facing an approach data center closure or the end of support for existing hardware.
- Replatform
Replatforming is usually seen as an advanced version of rehosting since you need to adjust the app for the new environment before repositioning it to achieve more profits. Essentially, alterations to the database, middleware, or runtime environment are required, but the core architecture stays the same.
Benefits: The replatform strategy offers reduced system costs, similar to a rehost strategy. However, minor changes to infrastructure compatibility can slightly enhance the app’s performance and efficiency.
Drawbacks: This approach involves a moderate amount of development resources. Furthermore, if your application has technical debt, this strategy won’t reduce it either, as the changes will not address its pain points.
When to choose?
You can confidently choose replatforming if your software needs to adapt to a new environment before migrating because of compatibility issues.
- Refactor
Refactoring presupposes significant changes to the application’s codebase to fully utilize the app’s potential, simplify the updating process, and provide the possibility of adding new features. That is why reengineering parts of the software is vital for its implementation.
Benefits: The refactor strategy minimizes technical debt through code optimization. It enhances the performance, scalability, and security, as well as its maintainability and economical efficiency.
Drawbacks: It is a difficult process that needs substantial effort and resources. In addition, identifying and eliminating the pain points in the entire system is time-consuming and demands an experienced team to be done thoroughly.
When to choose?
Refactoring can be a preferable modernization option for software with overly complex code that needs revision to ensure future growth and innovation. Although the process can be challenging, this strategy provides visible improvements in your application and long-term cost minimization.
- Rearchitect
According to the rearchitect strategy, an app requires to be redesigned into another architecture model to optimize it for current and future business needs. There is no need for a complete application rebuild, but significant changes should be made to the code, functionality, and interaction with other programs, networks, or endpoints.
Benefits: Rearchitecting provides a future-proof system structure. Therefore, it significantly improves performance, scalability, and security, enhancing maintainability and effectiveness.
Drawbacks: This strategy requires substantial resource investments. Moreover, if the process isn’t organized reasonably, it poses risks of interrupting your working process due to significant changes.
When to choose?
Rearchitecting is worth considering if the current infrastructure design limits the application’s performance or integration capabilities and needs to be adjusted for your objectives. For example, we used the rearchitect strategy for one of our projects to decrease the loading time by ~80 times, even without disrupting the existing operations.
- Rebuild
Rebuilding involves completely rewriting the outdated program from scratch. Using new technologies suitable for your project and DevOps practices can help your software meet modern technological standards and business needs. Generally speaking, this strategy is suitable for companies with specific requirements and unique workflows that ready-made solutions can’t satisfy.
Benefits: A new custom solution will be designed to improve your workflow, providing maximum flexibility, scalability, and security. Meanwhile, adopting the latest technologies can boost performance, simplify maintenance, and add advanced features like AI integration. Overall, the rebuilding strategy will result in substantial expense optimization.
Drawbacks: A complete app rewrite demands significant resource investments and extended development time compared to other strategies.
When to choose?
The rebuild strategy is typically considered when the existing application is too outdated or rigid to modernize with faster methods. It is noteworthy that considering technological advancements, new programming languages, frameworks, and other efficiencies, the effort needed to adjust the outdated app can be significantly higher than that to rebuild it. For instance, we rebuilt software for a Veterinary Blood Bank, as it lacked essential functionality and failed to make the workflow efficient.
- Replace
Replacing involves eliminating the outdated application and adopting an off-the-shelf solution to meet your business needs.
Benefits: The replace strategy offers quick implementation, enabling you to use new advanced features without disrupting your workflow. Additionally, it reduces maintenance and development effort, as scalability and security are managed by the vendor.
Drawbacks: Ready-made solutions can have potential compatibility issues with existing systems, as they offer limited customization variants. They may not be money-saving in the long run since scalability options demand even more investments. On top of that, you depend on third-party vendors’ security efforts and pricing strategies.
When to choose?
Replacing can be successfully applied if your company has requirements that a ready-made solution can fully satisfy without needing advanced customization. In addition, off-the-shelf software can be a temporary choice in critical situations when you need a new one as soon as possible.
App modernization process
The application modernization process includes assessment, planning, and implementation stages and requires an expert team, either in-house or outsourced, to be executed successfully.
Assessment of current state
The first step is thoroughly investigating the app to understand its contemporary condition, as well as identify the main pain points and areas that need improvement. It is also crucial to define the modernization goals and the available resources to ensure that all the details are considered.
Strategic planning and roadmap development
Based on the assessment results, we can select the most suitable modernization approach for each software with a balance of the potential benefits, associated risks, and costs. Factors like the application’s complexity, business criticality, and available resources are also taken into account. As a result, you receive a detailed modernization plan with the objectives, specifications, chosen modernization strategy, resource requirements, team structure, and a timeline. The success metrics, which guide the project and assess its effectiveness, are also included.
Implementation of the modernization strategy
An iterative process is the best choice for modernizing an app, as it guarantees efficiency, adaptability, and a reduced level of unexpected risks. Depending on the project’s scope and the planned team structure, repeating business analysis, design, development, testing, and deployment cycles may be required to ensure that the modernized application meets all the defined objectives and performs as expected.
Application modernization tools and services
If you want to simplify the execution of the modernization strategy, you should take advantage of new technologies. Cloud computing platforms, containerization, and automation tools are the pillars of app revamping, which will help enhance your program’s performance, scalability, security, and reliability.
Cloud computing
Cloud computing platforms, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, offer various services to support system improvements. These software solutions provide scalable infrastructure, flexible storage possibilities, and advanced instruments for deploying, managing, and optimizing your applications.
Containerization
By enabling seamless and consistent deployment across different environments, containerization platforms like Kubernetes and Docker are indispensable for application upgrades. In substance, containers encapsulate the app’s code and dependencies to ensure the reliability of its performance regardless of the underlying infrastructure.
Automation
Jenkins, Ansible, and Terraform are third-party tools that can streamline your modernization process by eliminating repetitive tasks, such as testing, deployment, and system management. As a result, they reduce the risk of human error, accelerate development, and ensure consistency across different environments.
Conclusion
To sum up, careful planning, a clear understanding of business objectives, and the right combination of skilled professionals and innovative technologies are keys to successful app upgrades. Due to the complexity of this process, firms that understand the differences between modernization strategies, along with their benefits and challenges, have odds of improving their outdated systems effectively.
At SysGears, we use a structured application modernization approach to help companies use their software to full potential and achieve long-term success.
If you need expert support in executing your modernization process, we are always ready to help. Explore our app development services.