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In this guide, application modernization is a continuous cycle of assessment, planning, execution, and maintenance. Viewing application modernization as a continuum helps your organization innovate and stay competitive while continually improving scalability, agility, security, and compliance.
As the following diagram shows, a lifecycle approach to continuous improvement builds cloud-native readiness. Each strategy you execute is designed to suit your organization’s level of technological and operational maturity, whether you’re launching a new proof of concept (PoC), laying a cloud-native foundation, or expanding and optimizing your use of PaaS.
Application modernization is a continuum of assessment, planning, execution, and maintenance to ensure that your technology and operations remain relevant and valuable.
Assess
Informed decision-making starts with a clear understanding of the current state of your application portfolio. A thorough assessment evaluates your organization’s IT assets, including legacy applications, data, and infrastructure, and identifies outdated systems, potential security vulnerabilities, and areas for optimization.
Assessment brings value through the assurance that your organization is prepared for the journey ahead. This guide provides best practices and checklists that help you determine inefficiencies, technical debt, and areas where modernization provides the most impact.
To learn more and get started, see Assess your application modernization needs.
Plan
During the planning cycle, you evaluate modernization strategies with a focus on ROI. On a business level, the goal is to prioritize financial objectives and get stakeholders to buy in. By documenting your plans, you create a roadmap that shows the way and helps you build momentum, assess progress, and meet your business goals.
At the application level, a plan determines the modernization approach best suited to the complexity and needs of each application. Depending on your starting point, you may target Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS) or platform as a service (PaaS). Decision-making frameworks based on the 6 Rs of cloud rationalization help you weigh value versus effort, choose the right approach, and prioritize the applications, workload, and data to modernize.
To learn more about planning and how to decide on the best modernization option for your use cases, see:
Launch
Any new execution cycle starts with the launch of a proof of concept (PoC) to determine the validity of your modernization strategy. A PoC brings potential technical and operational issues to light, enabling you to make iterative improvements to your strategy. A PoC also gives stakeholders tangible evidence of your strategy. You can establish feedback loops and gather insights.
You can also launch a Center of Excellence to collect feedback, drive continuous improvement, and train and support your teams.
To learn more about creating a PoC, see Launch your application modernization strategy.
Foundation
Executing your strategy lays the foundation of a cloud-native application portfolio. You begin end-to-end modernization with a cloud-first mindset, using PaaS to manage costs, increase scalability, and help future-proof your organization. Ultimately, your foundation enables you to deliver better customer experiences, get to market faster, and drive higher revenue.
A cloud-native foundation includes modern development and testing practices. Agile practices accelerate development cycles and reduce time-to-market for new features. Using continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, you can automate testing and deployment, essential practices for ensuring repeatable, high-quality releases.
To learn more about the ROI of a PaaS foundation and how to get started, see Lay the foundation for application modernization.
Expand
Application modernization brings a cloud-native mindset to your production environment. Expansion takes place during later execution cycles as the focus moves from transformation to growth and optimization.
Now your organization is ready to use managed application services to enhance performance, reliability, and business agility. An API-first approach helps you speed new services to market and reduce the cost of developing apps.
The value of these activities is measured in agility—faster time to market and response to customer demands. The operational efficiency you gain is a direct result of the solid foundation you established earlier. The compounded value includes improved customer satisfaction and a competitive edge in the market.
To learn more about the ROI of expansion and ways to use more PaaS in your organization, see Expand and optimize application modernization.
Innovate
As your organization executes and maintains a cycle of application modernization, you see new ways to AI and other advanced technologies. With innovation as a core competency, you can streamline the production environment established earlier and get new services to market faster through the API economy.
Innovation creates new business models, revenue streams, and user experiences. The value of innovation is clear—it helps you stay ahead of the competition and adapt to market trends.
To learn more about the ROI of innovation and get ideas, see Drive innovation during application modernization.
Optimize
A cycle of continuous optimization enhances efficiency, lowers cloud costs, and improves performance, security, and compliance. Data-driven insights inform right-sizing decisions based on historical usage and real-time demand. You’re ready to modernize business-critical applications using the latest approaches, including API-first designs and low-code platforms. Noncritical applications can be retired.
As you optimize your cloud-native foundation, we recommend adopting DevOps and DevSecOps practices to streamline processes, improve resource utilization, and speed delivery times. The compounded value of optimization activities includes sustained cost savings and enhanced operational performance, leading to higher margins.
To learn more about the ROI of optimization and strategies to apply, see Optimize and scale application modernization and optimize.
Next steps
Continue getting started and review the application modernization maturity model