How to modernize your applications: A 7-step plan for digital transformation

[ServicesExperts]

Preparing your software assets to reap the full benefits of cloud-based platforms can be a complex process. Here’s a blueprint for success.

by Debbie Mounts, Content Strategy and Enablement Team, HPE Pointnext Services Advisory and Professional Services

The advantages of a cloud strategy for software assets are well known: They include greater agility and scalability, and secure developer-ready environments to accelerate innovation. But getting applications ready for cloud platforms is often far from straightforward. Many will require refactoring and architectural changes; the necessary skills may not be available in-house, and the learning curve can be steep.

If you’re interested in modernizing your applications but wondering where to start, I offer a 7-step blueprint for in a recent CIO.com article: Half of Your Applications Need Modernizing by the End of 2022. What’s Your Plan? Here are the steps:

1. Assess cloud-readiness and design the cloud architecture. You can leverage manual or automated code analysis to assess the application’s cloud-readiness. Review the applicability of microservices and cloud-native serverless, as well as cloud services to meet your business, performance and scalability goals. Consider the cloud infrastructure that will be needed to support the modernized app, as well as the frameworks and tools your development teams will need.

2. Re-imagine the user experience. Look for creative ways to design customer-centric, market-relevant experiences. Design thinking and empathy workshops can help you determine what users really want and reveal new opportunities to delight customers.

3. Leverage a Proof of Concept to validate technical decisions and functionality​. A PoC can help you answer any technical questions and demonstrate the value of the solution to stakeholders.

4. Define the minimum viable product and development roadmap. Define user stories that can be prioritized to create the MVP, choosing requirements that will provide the best ROI and address your most critical business needs. Other requirements will become part of the roadmap for longer-term goals.

5. Build out new cloud infrastructure or optimize your current cloud environments to support the modernized applications. An infrastructure-as-code approach enables you to design the infrastructure with automated, repeatable ease of provisioning. A continuous integration–continuous delivery/deployment (CI/CD) toolchain can speed development cycles.

6. Modernize the application by leveraging an agile, MVP approach. Use an agile, sprint-based approach for the refactoring. Validate the user experience with real customers to ensure that the end-product will keep them engaged.

7. Implement automated testing throughout the process. Again, CI/CD tools can help here. Testing should cover applications, configurations and infrastructure, building confidence in the process.

Modernizing applications is an integral part of your digital transformation. Check out the full CIO.com article for more tips.

Read about the HPE Edge-to-Cloud Adoption Framework, a proven methodology to accelerate and de-risk your transformation to a cloud operating model.

Learn more about HPE Pointnext Services and how we help you transform, integrate and operate your hybrid cloud estate.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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