Roadmap for application modernisation

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Modernisation of existing applications is essential for most organisations. Only with an up-to-date system landscape are companies able to improve their user experience, operate more efficiently and respond more effectively to changing market requirements. The cloud plays a crucial role here. In this blog we discuss the most important challenges and provide practical suggestions for the cloud-based modernisation of traditional apps. 

The cloud offers many opportunities for companies and IT-leaders. Former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty stated last year that only one in five business applications runs in the cloud. It largely concerns new and customer-centric applications. The remaining 80 percent relates to the ‘difficult’ applications: mostly business-critical workloads.

These applications can be transferred ‘as is’ to a cloud-infrastructure (IaaS), whereby organisations achieve all the necessary advantages in the field of efficiency and scalability. For example, over-dimensioning with a view to meeting peak demands is no longer necessary because the cloud capacity can evolve with the need. In the event of real modernisation, organisations take advantage of other benefits of the cloud, such as the flexibility to shift workloads to the optimal IT environment and automated management and scaling.

Top priority 

The move to cloud-native apps is a top priority for many organisations. This allows them to increase their speed and agility, facilitate innovation, support mobile use cases and use advanced cloud services – ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to blockchain. In addition, the cloud offers greater geographic flexibility. Based on ‘pay per use’ applications, IT departments can scale up and down faster and automate management tasks.

Step-by-step plan 

In practice, the modernisation process of workloads is often seen as potentially expensive, time-consuming, labour-intensive and risky. This is caused by questions relating to operational performance and stability, investments already made in the existing infrastructure, security and the level of control.

A step-by-step plan helps to address these concerns. A phased approach in the transfer to cloud-native apps is recommended. Start for example with the less complex, customer-centric applications and gradually modernise the business-critical applications. Most importantly, do what makes sense for your organisation while considering all options for support and solutions available on the market.

Cloud for VMware 

IBM and VMware enable organisations to extend existing VMware-workloads to the IBM Cloud-platform. We already said this is possible ‘as is’ with IaaS, to then make the step to real modernisation. With IBM Cloud for VMware, container-based technologies (i.e. building blocks consisting of a combination of application and operating system) can be deployed to modernise workloads that run in a VMware environment. The solutions within IBM Cloud for VMware ensure that organisations keep control, improve security and drive innovation.

Want to know more? 

Download for more information on all available solutions for the modernisation of applications here >. Or contact IBM Cloud directly for advice and support.