Azure Application Modernization

Editor's Notes

• #2: Why should we update our apps to .NET Core? What is the advantage to us? Why should we write new apps to target .NET Core? We don’t foresee deploying to Linux servers any time soon How do we understand the best practices for converting existing apps to run in Azure and develop new apps in Azure with regard to the specific cloud patterns? Can you recommend any good training to help our developers?
• #3: Your business – every modern business, really – is powered by applications. Today, every company runs many different applications that are essential for success – internal business applications (data entry, business intelligence, procurement, legal, CRM, ERP) but also external-facing applications for customers and partners (company web site, customer self-service portal, e-commerce sites, mobile apps for products and services). Both external-facing applications and internal business applications in turn are connected to and access line of business systems – those mission-critical business applications that form the bedrock of every company – SAP, CRM, mainframe systems that run factories or fulfillment centers, HR, payroll and so on. Basically, any core system, that - should it go down – causes business to grind to a halt is a line of business application. And then, there's data. Every single application in your organization works with data, consumes data and – in turn - generates data. Today, every business collects tremendous amounts of data - and the challenge is how to turn this treasure trove of unstructured information into actionable insights and intelligence.
• #4: The Microsoft Cloud supports all cloud service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, public loud, hybrid, on-premises) in any combination, without reservation. It’s our customers’ choice whether they run their apps and solutions on IaaS, PaaS and even SaaS such as in the case of a specialized service like Visual Studio Team Services. IaaS for us is everything that is related to core infrastructure while PaaS services enable advanced workloads. Complementing both IaaS and PaaS offerings is a set of developer tools, DevOps and management services. The reason we call out tools and management services separately is that they work across all our cloud services and solutions – for example, DevOps tools and services apply to services, no matter which one has been chosen for a particular app.
• #5: 4
• #6: 5
• #7: 6
• #8: 7
• #9: Microsoft IT’s cloud journey is a real-world case study of a Fortune 500 IT organization looking to modernize a sprawling application portfolio with thousands of applications of varying size and complexity. This slide shows the results of a multi-year portfolio evaluation, and how this vast collection of applications has been sorted and prioritized for cloud adoption. When evaluating portfolio modernization, no cloud hosting option should be taken off the table – there is no one size fits all solution that works for every application. Some applications will be moved to IaaS, some will be redesigned to use PaaS services and yet others are a good fit for replacement using a SaaS solution. There is only one journey – the journey to the cloud – but many different paths to get there. Such an app portfolio assessment is also a great opportunity to clean house - retire applications that are no longer used or valuable and take them down. About 30% of our app portfolio could be turned off – generating immediate savings. 15% of our applications have been replaced by a SaaS solution (for example moving from Office servers to Office 365). We also transitioned functionality from shadow IT apps to off-the-shelf retail solutions. Complex and customized LOB applications make up 50% of our portfolio. Within that group, 35% have been identified as “first to move.” These are basic web apps, or re-architected solutions - good candidates to start with. We tend to modernize more aggressively than our customers, focusing on “what’s moving next?”. Don’t hesitate, move apps and functionality, and make it work. 5% of all apps have been identified as “hard or costly to move.” These migrations fail, and fail fast. A few apps have been moved back on-premises – why? Required Azure capabilities might still need to mature more, or we would need very large VMs to make the app work. This means that these apps can’t meet SLAs, and this can’t be remediated easily. Less than 5% of apps remain on premises.
• #10: Here are the top 3 learnings from our multi-year portfolio evaluation: Don’t underestimate the amount of outdated, unused, duplicated, over-provisioned legacy applications that you might find in your application portfolio.Identifying candidates for retirement or consolidation will generate immediate savings. When evaluating application portfolio modernization, no cloud hosting option (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) should be taken off the table too early – there is no one size fits all solution that works for every application.Some applications will be moved to IaaS, some will be redesigned to use PaaS services and yet others are a good fit for replacement using a SaaS solution. When it comes to custom applications, we found that simple workloads – such as customer-facing web sites, internal web portals or standard 3-tier applications - are good candidates for PaaS.Managed cloud services for these workloads are so mature and reliable nowadays that it does not make sense to go the IaaS route anymore.The fastest way to unlock cloud benefits for more complex solutions and workloads is to first lift-and-shift as-is to the cloud, using VMs or container technology, and then gradually modernize where necessary.For undocumented or legacy code, our suggestion is to not touch it but instead surround it with pockets of new functionality using technologies like serverless functions that can be triggered via APIs.
• #12: Command and Query Responsibility Delegation
• #16: There is one journey, but each application can take a radically different path to get to the cloud. Options range from migration – moving the application, its infrastructure and data as-is to the cloud – through modernization - where an app is modified to better take advantage of the cloud - to re-building where the app is recreated using a cloud-native approach. Gartner has proposed a more granular model comprised of rehost, refactor, rearchitect and rebuild. They break down modernization into refactoring – moving an app to containers without changing it – and rearchitecting which requires larger changes to source code or application architecture. Cutting horizontally across migration, modernization and cloud-native is DevOps. To take full advantage of cloud benefits, a DevOps approach of continuous delivery is essential – after all, what sense does an agile and flexible cloud platform make if you still need weeks or months to get changes or bug fixes out there?
• #17: Modernizing an application involves some change to application design, but no changes to application code. The application takes advantage of IaaS and potentially PaaS capabilities from a cloud provider while maintaining the existing code strategic to the application's use case. This approach is particularly interesting for customers looking to unlock advanced cloud benefits even if they are unable or unwilling to change code and rewrite the application. It’s also the preferred approach for customers using multiple cloud providers that are looking for portability across clouds and modern DevOps workflows.
• #18: There are quite a few triggers for this kind of modernization, but it essentially comes down to two main motivations: breathing new life into an existing application or extending a legacy application by adding new functionality.
• #19: Microsoft Azure is a turn-key application delivery platform for Cloud-Native applications, and services. Cloud-Native is a way of approaching the development and deployment of applications in a way that takes full account of the characteristics and nature of the cloud - resulting in applications and workflows that unlock inherent cloud benefits like scale, agility and innovation. Core technologies in cloud-native applications are containers, microservices and serverless. Containers. Running applications and processes in software containers as an isolated unit of application deployment, and as a mechanism to achieve high levels of resource isolation improves the developer experience, fosters code and component reuse and simplifies operations for cloud-native applications. Microservices. As opposed to monolithic or n-tier application patterns, cloud-native applications are loosely coupled with dependencies explicitly described. This significantly increases the overall agility and maintainability of applications. Serverless. Serverless computing is a cloud-computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources so developers can focus on code without distractions. Underpinning all of this is a DevOps-oriented approach of continuous delivery and continuous innovation that enables organizations to deliver new features and capabilities rapidly. All of these technologies are cloud-native – but they offer different levels of control over infrastructure versus productivity.
• #21: Here’s an interesting data point – enterprises are already adopting cloud-native technologies.
• #22: Containers are a packaging mechanism in which applications are abstracted from the environment in which they run. This allows container-based applications to be deployed easily and consistently, regardless of whether the target environment is a private data center, the public cloud, or even a developer’s personal laptop. Containers are faster and more efficient than VMs – they enable agile app deployment and instant startup. Since containers do not require a separate operating system, they use less resources and thus tend to be more cost-effective. Containers are platform independent - build it once and run it anywhere - containers run on any cloud, and even on premises, without changes. And finally, containers support all frameworks and technology stacks.
• #24: Whenever there are more than a handful of containers in use, orchestrators come into play. The industry-standard for container orchestration across platforms today is Kubernetes – it’s beginning to crowd out the likes of Docker. Kubernetes is a portable, extensible open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services, that facilitates rapid configuration and automation. Kubernetes has a large, rapidly growing ecosystem of services, support, and tools. On Azure, the easiest way to work with Kubernetes is managed Kubernetes with AKS. Managed Kubernetes on Azure allows developers to focus on their code and their containers and abstracts away a lot of the hassles of set up and administration of a Kubernetes cluster. This is one of the reasons why Azure is the best cloud for containers.
• #25: Microservices architecture means breaking large software projects into smaller, independent, and loosely coupled modules. Each service is independent and each service is a new project that can be developed on its own schedule, using any language or stack that best fits current requirements. Scaling up is easier than with VMs or Containers – it just requires deploying additional services as needed. Microservices make application maintenance easier - developers work on individual services, so the code base a developer needs to handle is smaller, easier to manage and easier to understand. Microservices-based applications are also more resilient and stable - if one or more services should fail, the application will continue to work. Individual service instances can easily be upgraded, changed or taken down without impacting the entire application negatively.
• #26: This loose coupling is key to facilitating rapid and reliable evolution of an application. CLICK What would have been a single tier of a monolithic application decomposes into many discrete microservices, each independent and isolated.
• #29: Serverless computing is a cloud-computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Server management and capacity planning decisions are completely hidden from the developer or operator. Pricing is based on the actual amount of resources consumed by an application. This approach allows developers to focus on code without distractions – if they do not have to think about infrastructure, they will be more productive. Serverless is optimized for any scenario where logic needs to be run in response to an event – and this definition encompasses a lot of application scenarios. Serverless functions can be spun up on demand and scale indefinitely. Serverless simplifies packaging and deployment and requires no system administration.
• #30: With Azure, you can build applications without provisioning and managing infrastructure using a fully managed platform where scaling, availability, and performance are handled for you. Serverless computing is a cloud-computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Pricing is based on the actual amount of resources consumed by an application. This approach allows developers to focus on code without distractions – if they do not have to think about infrastructure, they will be more productive. Serverless is optimized for any scenario where logic needs to be run in response to an event – and this definition encompasses a lot of application scenarios. For existing applications, serverless offers an attractive way to extend the functionality of an application without touching the actual source code which might be undocumented or outdated. Instead of implementing new functionality in the main application, it’s much easier and faster to surround it with pockets of new functionality using technologies like serverless functions that can be triggered via APIs and events. This also enables you to use advanced cloud-only capabilities like machine learning or AI with existing legacy applications that were built before such concepts were widely available.
• #31: Azure is the best cloud for serverless because we provide not just a single service but a full platform that you can use to build cloud native applications. At the core are three main services: Functions - Event-driven serverless compute experience Event Grid - Intelligent event routing service that bring both 1st party and 3rd party events to serverless compute to act upon. Logic Apps - Ability to create workflows and orchestrate processes using a rich designer experience. Alongside these core services, we provide a host of other managed building block services – like database (Cosmos DB), storage, Cognitive Services, IoT services etc. These services can be utilized by developers to build fully serverless applications which don’t require any infrastructure management. Our serverless stack also enables developers to take the innovative development model of serverless and bring it to on-premises applications. Finally, our flexible pricing model is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition and provides transparency and predictability as usage increases.
• #32: Finally, there is DevOps. There is also a DevOps HERO solution, so I’ll keep this part short today – but DevOps is so essential for the Azure value proposition that it is a part of the App Modernization pitch.
• #33: DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to end users. The contraction of Dev and Ops refers to replacing silo’ed Development and Operations to create multidisciplinary teams that now work together with shared and efficient practices and tools. A converged DevOps lifecycle – one that integrates the IT Ops cycle and the developer lifecycle – provides the ability to execute on ideas quickly and iterate on feedback rapidly while at the same time maintaining highest levels of quality. For Microsoft, DevOps encompasses the whole application lifecycle, from idea to application running in production, not just deployment and production. This end-to-end approach is what differentiates our DevOps story from our competitors – they tend to take a much narrower view of DevOps, depending on the features and capabilities of their products.
• #34: When you use Azure DevOps to build apps in the cloud and deploy to Azure, each time you commit code, it’s automatically built and tested and bugs are detected faster. By combining continuous integration and infrastructure as code, you’ll achieve identical deployments and develop the confidence to deploy to production at any time. With continuous deployment, you can automate the entire process from code commit to production. With Azure Application Insights you can identify how your applications are performing and test if the recent deployment made things better or worse. Using CI/CD practices, paired with monitoring tools, you’ll be able to safely deliver features to your customers as soon as they’re ready.
• #35: Here’s a typical application development workflow – starting with work planning and tracking, progressing through coding and testing and then deployment to production where the application is continuously monitored and improved. Azure DevOps works with tools that customers already use – they can build applications in their team’s favorite language, IDE, and toolchain - whether or not they’re from Microsoft. Or, they can use our first-party toolset to build and deploy your app to any platform, cloud or app store - all with ready-made or custom-built tasks.
• #36: Here’s a typical application development workflow – starting with work planning and tracking, progressing through coding and testing and then deployment to production where the application is continuously monitored and improved. Azure DevOps works with tools that customers already use – they can build applications in their team’s favorite language, IDE, and toolchain - whether or not they’re from Microsoft. Or, they can use our first-party toolset to build and deploy your app to any platform, cloud or app store - all with ready-made or custom-built tasks.
• #37: Disruption affects every industry and no company is safe – we all have heard about the now classic examples of Blockbuster being ousted by Netflix, Uber disrupting the traditional taxi industry, and even Skype making the pay phone and pricey long-distance calls a thing of the past. Half of the companies that were on the Fortune 500 in 2000 are now gone, replaced by organizations that deliver value faster, better, and cheaper than the incumbents did – and the current Fortune 500 very much faces the same fate. Technology plays a central role in these disruptors‘ ability to execute better or faster.
• #41: Microsoft IT’s cloud journey is a real-world case study of a Fortune 500 IT organization looking to modernize a sprawling application portfolio with thousands of applications of varying size and complexity. This slide shows the results of a multi-year portfolio evaluation, and how this vast collection of applications has been sorted and prioritized for cloud adoption. When evaluating portfolio modernization, no cloud hosting option should be taken off the table – there is no one size fits all solution that works for every application. Some applications will be moved to IaaS, some will be redesigned to use PaaS services and yet others are a good fit for replacement using a SaaS solution. There is only one journey – the journey to the cloud – but many different paths to get there. Such an app portfolio assessment is also a great opportunity to clean house - retire applications that are no longer used or valuable and take them down. About 30% of our app portfolio could be turned off – generating immediate savings. 15% of our applications have been replaced by a SaaS solution (for example moving from Office servers to Office 365). We also transitioned functionality from shadow IT apps to off-the-shelf retail solutions. Complex and customized LOB applications make up 50% of our portfolio. Within that group, 35% have been identified as “first to move.” These are basic web apps, or re-architected solutions - good candidates to start with. We tend to modernize more aggressively than our customers, focusing on “what’s moving next?”. Don’t hesitate, move apps and functionality, and make it work. 5% of all apps have been identified as “hard or costly to move.” These migrations fail, and fail fast. A few apps have been moved back on-premises – why? Required Azure capabilities might still need to mature more, or we would need very large VMs to make the app work. This means that these apps can’t meet SLAs, and this can’t be remediated easily. Less than 5% of apps remain on premises.
• #43: Technology is opening up entirely new markets and creating innovative ways to serve customers. More and more organizations push digital innovation beyond experimentation to drive competitive advantage, and continuously deliver value. At the same time, app-driven disruption provides exponential growth opportunities for organizations that are ready to tap into the power of software. It’s no longer just the Silicon Valley unicorns that become digital disruptors – more and more, companies you might not immediately associate with the cutting edge of IT have recognized they need to invest in new technology. ‘Traditional’ companies are looking to the cloud and investing in applications to differentiate themselves from their competition.
• #44: As the business world moves into the digital space to meet the next generation of customers, employees and partners, create new efficiencies, and compete globally, organizations can’t view applications the same way as before – they have to take them to the next level. Are your applications ready for this new tomorrow?
• #45: Microsoft is well positioned to help customers navigate the new normal of application-driven innovation. Our cloud application development platform has been recognized by Gartner as market-leading in key areas – such as the ones on this slide which cover application frontend, backend, data and DevOps.
• #46: 45
• #47: Let’s take a closer look at the different migration and modernization options. What differentiates our solution from our competition is that we meet customers where they are in their cloud journey, Whichever path and option they choose, we will be there to ensure they get the best outcome – across IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and even on-premises - and any combination thereof. We are the only cloud vendor that offers this broad set of capabilities.
• #48: Rehosting is also referred to as a lift-and-shift migration. Basically, the application is moved into the IaaS environment of a cloud provider while avoiding modifications to the system as much as possible. With this approach, some cloud benefits are realized but you are not really taking advantage of advanced cloud capabilities such as autoscaling or improved resiliency.
• #49: Ideal scenarios for this approach include wanting to move to the cloud now but modernize later and drive instant reduction in TCO. It’s the quickest way to unlock the benefits of flexible and scalable cloud infrastructure. Migration triggers include consolidation of data centers, hardware refresh cycles or a general move away from on-premises systems.
• #50: There is a separate HERO solution for infrastructure migration so I will not go into details on this topic today. Suffice it to say that Azure has a complete IaaS offering that covers all application workloads – scenarios like SAP re-platforming, data center migration or database migration are all addressed. We also have the strongest hybrid story on the market today, with offerings like Azure Stack, Active Directory and hybrid networking. One complaint that we often hear from developers is that cloud costs are very often not transparent, hard to calculate and can balloon quickly.
• #51: There are a couple of ways how Azure can help save money that go beyond standard benefits of a cloud platform. A very unique benefit, especially for customers that have existing investments in Microsoft technology, is the Azure Hybrid Benefit and the included three years of free extended security updates. This is an offer that AWS simply cannot match, so be sure to bring it up with your customers! For further details on this offer, please check out the infrastructure migration HERO solution on Infopedia.
• #52: Microsoft Azure is a powerful and flexible foundation for existing and new applications – our full-stack cloud covers frontend, backend, data, intelligence and DevOps. Use the technology stack and language of your choice with our best-in-class development tools and cloud services or work the way you want and keep the tools you already use and love.
• #53: Finally, there is the option of starting over or starting from scratch, without baggage and prior technical debt - building a new application using a cloud-native approach. This is where high-productivity PaaS architectures really shine – because managed services enable model-driven rapid application development. With managed cloud services, developers do not need to reinvent the wheel and build functionality from scratch – instead, they can use highly optimized cloud services that plug together seamlessly, enabling them to build complex applications and advanced functionality with minimal effort.
• #54: Disruption affects every industry and no company is safe – we all have heard about the now classic examples of Blockbuster being ousted by Netflix, Uber disrupting the traditional taxi industry, and even Skype making the pay phone and pricey long-distance calls a thing of the past. Half of the companies that were on the Fortune 500 in 2000 are now gone, replaced by organizations that deliver value faster, better, and cheaper than the incumbents did – and the current Fortune 500 very much faces the same fate. Technology plays a central role in these disruptors‘ ability to execute better or faster.
• #55: Users and customers expect performance and comfort – now more than ever before. Access to services from anywhere, anytime, on any device is no longer a value-add, it’s the new normal says Gartner. Enterprises need to rethink how they design applications to give the perception of 100 percent availability and reliability. Investing in immersive, intelligent and personalized digital experiences pays off handsomely. CLICK Tangible results include a 2% increase in customer conversion from browse to buy if an e-commerce site or app offers a fast and smooth user experience,CLICKa measured 14% uplift in sales when experiences are personalized as per the user’s preferencesCLICKand a 36 point increase in customer satisfaction if customers can interact from different mobile or desktop devices with an application or service. CLICK But these examples are just table-stakes that you have to address in order to remain competitive today. What about the future? The business application landscape is undergoing rapid transformation, with traditional apps changing radically. CLICK Advanced digital capabilities are gaining mainstream traction rapidly – one example is voice and visual search. Convenience remains a top priority for customers, so as voice and visual search increase in capability, ideally websites and mobile apps should be updated to integrate this technology. The explosive growth of voice devices and intelligent assistants such as Cortana, Amazon Echo or Google Home is expected to continue, generating $3.5 billion by 2021. In line with that trend, by 2019, half of major commerce companies and retailers with online stores will have redesigned their commerce sites to accommodate voice searches and voice navigation. Aside from addressing customer demands, the integration of visual and voice search into existing platforms allows companies to collect valuable data around customer preferences. When done properly, early adopters can expect to see an increase in conversion rates, revenue, and customer satisfaction. CLICK Another example is the rapid proliferation of intelligent agents and conversational experiences. Gartner predicts that by 2021, 50 percent of enterprises will spend more per annum on bots and chatbot creation than traditional mobile app development. Apps using bot or virtual assistant (VA) technology provide a non-silo’ed approach and allow consumers to complete a variety of tasks using their preferred interface instead of transitioning between different applications, devices and form factors.
• #56: 55
• #57: Forrester gets right to the point – we have the best cloud for developers, full stop.
• #58: Many enterprises have to deal with a complex infrastructure grown over decades, need to support multiple platforms, and have many different types of data as well as highly customized legacy applications. This causes a lot of uncertainty and questions about the best way to get applications to the cloud. Let’s talk a bit more about the different paths on the application journey to the cloud. Very often, customers already have prior application investments that might seem outdated, inflexible or are simply not up to the task because the environment and business has changed since they were built. If that is the case, the cloud can help re-vitalize and modernize applications and enable them to keep up with the current speed of business. Or, if customers are in the enviable position that they can start from scratch – without prior technical debt or existing constraints – then they can create truly Cloud-Native applications – applications, born in the cloud, uniquely designed to take maximum advantage of the benefits and advantages of the Azure cloud platform.
• #62: Command and Query Responsibility Delegation
• #63: Command and Query Responsibility Delegation
• #64: Command and Query Responsibility Delegation