Leveraging AWS for Effective Application Modernization

Modernizing legacy applications has become a top priority for many organizations today. Gartner predicts that by 2023, a significant 75% of organizations will leverage intelligent automation and AI to modernize their legacy systems. This strategic move offers numerous advantages, including streamlined operations, accelerated time-to-market, superior customer experiences, and fortified security.
As the undisputed leader in cloud infrastructure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) empowers organizations to seamlessly modernize their applications. With a dominant 32% market share (Flexera 2022 State of the Cloud Report), AWS offers a comprehensive suite of services, a vast partner ecosystem, and proven enterprise-grade capabilities. This robust platform enables organizations to migrate and modernize legacy applications with confidence.
This comprehensive guide explores cutting-edge strategies and essential AWS services to breathe new life into outdated applications. Discover real-world case studies and quantifiable results that demonstrate the transformative power of AWS modernization.

The Need for Application Modernization.

Why Modernize Legacy Apps with AWS?

1. Improve Agility: Legacy applications using monolithic architectures lack agility. They require significant time and effort to develop, test, and release new features. Modern containerized microservices on AWS enable agile application development and deployment.
2. Enhance Innovation: Modern components like AI, ML, automation, IoT etc. can be much more easily integrated with cloud-native applications rather than legacy apps. This speeds up innovation.
3. Reduce Costs: Legacy apps require expensive hardware and data centers. Migrating to AWS cloud reduces total cost of ownership by 60% for many organizations. Automation further optimizes costs.
4. Attract Top Talent: Developers versed with legacy languages are difficult to find. Cloud-native skills allow organizations to attract top-notch millennials.
5. Improve Customer Experience: Delivering rich, personalized omnichannel experiences necessitates using modern cloud-native technologies only. Legacy apps pose limitations.
6. Enhance Security: With capabilities like encryption, role-based access, event logging, traceability, AWS and modern architectures provide robust security which legacy platforms lacked.
   

According to IDC, organizations are rapidly modernizing their applications, infrastructure, and data platforms on the cloud, achieving up to a 35% boost in project deployment speed. AWS offers a comprehensive suite of managed services to help businesses streamline legacy application modernization and align it with strategic goals.

Key AWS Services for Application Modernization

AWS empowers businesses with a comprehensive suite of over 200 cloud services, encompassing compute, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer, management, IoT, security, enterprise applications, and more.

Discover top AWS managed services to streamline legacy application modernization and unlock innovation.

• Compute Services (e.g AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2) enable scalable and flexible computing capacity.
• Container Services (e.g Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)) provide environments to manage and deploy containerized applications.
• Serverless Architecture (e.g., AWS Lambda) allows businesses to build and run applications without managing servers.
• Database Services (e.g Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB) offer managed database services for various database engines.
• Storage Solutions (e.g Amazon S3, Amazon EBS) provide secure and scalable storage options.
• Migration Services (e.g AWS Migration Hub, AWS Database Migration Service) support the smooth transition of applications, data, and workloads to the cloud.
• DevOps Tools (e.g., AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodePipeline) facilitate continuous integration and continuous delivery.
  

Key Considerations for Application Modernization on AWS

Drawing insights from AWS best practices and industry-renowned experts, let's explore the key factors for a seamless modernization of legacy applications on AWS.

1. Prioritize Business Goals: Before embarking on legacy modernization initiatives, organizations must identify and prioritize business goals tied to the effort - like faster customer onboarding, personalized recommendations, smoother transactions etc. The modernization approach should focus on achieving those business objectives.
2. Assess Existing Platforms: Assessment of existing infrastructure and application platforms in terms of business alignment, technology debt, interdependencies, resource utilization and cost is crucial before modernization. This allows creating the right cloud migration strategy.
3. Take an Incremental Approach: For de-risking, legacy modernization is best done incrementally - potentially beginning with less complex applications and then progressing to the complex, mission-critical ones. This agile approach reduces disruption and validates benefits earlier.
4. Leverage Migration Tools: To simplify moving legacy apps to AWS, leveraging tools like AWS Application Migration Service, AWS Database Migration Service and AWS Server Migration Service help automate migrations. They reduce efforts significantly.
5. Measure Outcomes: Define Cloud Smart success metrics aligned to business goals prior to embarking on modernization initiatives. Continuously monitor progress against those KPIs for rapid optimizations. This ensures cloud investments deliver maximum ROI.
   

Key considerations for successful legacy modernization encompass strategic cloud resource allocation, robust data security measures, strategic partnerships to address specialized skill gaps, and the establishment of tailored cloud management best practices. By implementing these strategies, organizations can streamline their modernization efforts.

Driving Innovation with Modernized Applications

Real-World AWS Success Stories: Modernizing Legacy Applications:

• Financial Services Firm Temenos redesigned its banking software products into independently upgradeable microservices-based architecture hosted on AWS leveraging Docker containers, APIs, AWS Lambda and other cloud-native services. This has made the platform much more agile, scalable and easier for banks to innovate on top of it.
• Using AWS native services, PayPal migrated its customer identification and profile management application from a legacy Oracle RAC database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. This has reduced database management overheads by 90% while cutting TCO by 50%. Enhanced fault tolerance ensures PayPal delivers always-on capabilities resulting in smoother customer experiences.
• Leading hospitality major Hilton modernized several legacy applications into AWS leveraging microservices, AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway and other cloud-native capabilities. This has reduced change requests deployment time from a few months to a few hours driving significantly faster innovation. Hilton is able to roll out new features in just 2-6 weeks now.
• Using AWS Graviton2 processors to run its modernized apps, fashion retailer Benetton saw a 45 percent cost reduction compared to prior IBM Power infrastructure. Gradually modernizing apps to cloud-native technologies ensured zero downtime during this transition. Boosted time-to-market for new launches, omnichannel experiences and global expansion were key motivations.
• Leading stock exchange National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) modernized their trading applications from on-premises to AWS cloud leveraging microservices architecture. This has made launching innovative new financial products like derivatives trading simpler while reducing trading latency significantly. Their modern platforms now deliver sub-millisecond response times enabling smooth transactions even during high loads.

Global enterprises are pioneering digital transformation by modernizing legacy systems with AWS and cloud-native technologies. This strategic shift empowers them to deliver innovative solutions, enhance customer experiences, and accelerate time-to-market.

Improving Operational Metrics via Modernization

Here are some compelling metrics from industry reports that highlight the potential advantages of successful modernization initiatives on AWS:

• As per 2021 IDC global survey, organizations were able to achieve the following outcomes via application and database modernisation projects on AWS over 3 years:
  - 57% faster deployment velocity
  - 62% improvement in productivity
  - 45% higher infrastructure cost savings
  - 51% boost in business agility
• According to Gartner, AWS customers see 60-80% cost reduction by running modernized workloads in the cloud and retiring expensive legacy data centers. Optimizing resources using automation and management tools delivers additional 25% savings.
• Per Forrester Total Economic Impact Study, enterprises adopting AWS and modernizing apps, databases and infrastructure observed near 80% decrease in platform management costs. This frees up precious IT resources to focus on innovation.
• Through a multi-year modernization program, leading energy company bp migrated 800 legacy apps including Oracle, SMTP and LDAP based apps to AWS cloud leveraging microservices, AWS Lambda, Amazon Aurora and other cloud-native capabilities. This reduced infrastructure costs by 30-40% while making the apps significantly more maintainable, resilient and agile to change.
• Automotive manufacturing major Boeing tested workloads on AWS Graviton2 processors during legacy modernisation and observed the following improvements compared to prior Intel-based EC2 instances:
  - 40% better price-performance
  - 20% faster performance
  - 30% reduction in costs

By swapping legacy hardware for cutting-edge AWS infrastructure, businesses across diverse sectors are witnessing transformative results. These impressive performance metrics underscore the power of modernization in driving innovation and efficiency.‍

Best Practices for Application Modernization on AWS

Unlocking the Secrets to Successful AWS Legacy Modernization: Expert-Curated Best Practices

• Begin by identifying easiest workloads to move based on least disruption and highest ROI followed by most complex ones
• Utilize both lift-and-shift and re-platforming approaches based on app architecture, timelines and cost
• Leverage AWS Schema Conversion Tool and AWS Database Migration Service to simplify database migrations
• Modernize legacy Windows apps for best performance and lower TCO using AWS fleet manager
• Adopt microservices architecture with API-first approach for greenfield application development
• Implement CI/CD automation early leveraging AWS Developer Tools for rapid iterations
• Instrument application performance metrics from start to spot-optimize regularly
• Build cloud management capabilities internally with training, upskilling and cloud center of excellence
• Evaluate serverless technologies like AWS Lambda to innovate faster at lower costs
• Consult with cloud experts and managed service providers to incorporate best practices

Accelerate your digital transformation with these proven steps to seamlessly migrate to AWS cloud-native technologies, maximizing business impact.

Conclusion

Accelerate Digital Transformation: Modernizing Legacy Applications with AWS

Legacy systems, while foundational, often hinder organizational agility and innovation. By strategically leveraging AWS cloud-native managed services, organizations can significantly enhance their digital transformation journey.

Key Benefits of AWS-Powered Modernization:

• Enhanced Agility: Rapidly respond to market shifts and customer demands.
• Accelerated Innovation: Quickly develop and deploy new applications and features.
• Superior Customer Experiences: Deliver seamless and personalized digital experiences.
• Robust Security Posture: Protect sensitive data and applications with advanced security measures.
• Optimized Cost Efficiency: Reduce operational costs and maximize resource utilization.

Why Choose AWS for Legacy Modernization?

• Proven Track Record: A wealth of experience in helping enterprises modernize their applications.
• Continuous Innovation: A commitment to delivering cutting-edge services and features.
• Comprehensive Product Portfolio: A wide range of services to meet diverse modernization needs.
• Expert Guidance: Access to AWS experts and best practices to ensure successful transformation.

A Roadmap to Successful Modernization:

1. Assess Your Legacy Environment: Identify pain points and modernization opportunities.
2. Prioritize Business Goals: Align modernization efforts with strategic objectives.
3. Adopt an Incremental Approach: Modernize in phases to minimize disruption.
4. Measure and Optimize: Continuously monitor performance and refine your strategy.

Real-World Success Stories:

Numerous organizations across industries have successfully modernized their legacy applications on AWS. By following these best practices and leveraging AWS's powerful capabilities, you can unlock the full potential of your digital transformation initiatives.

Conclusion

Embarking on a legacy modernization journey with AWS empowers organizations to achieve greater agility, innovation, and cost efficiency. By harnessing the power of the cloud, you can future-proof your applications and drive sustainable business growth.