Key takeaways on application modernisation:

• Application modernisation involves transforming legacy systems to leverage modern technologies, primarily focusing on cloud capabilities, to enhance efficiency and adaptability.
• Modernising legacy applications is crucial for businesses to stay competitive, mitigate risks related to outdated systems, and improve overall operational performance.
• A structured approach to selecting modernisation strategies, including thorough assessments and careful planning, is vital for effectively managing resources and achieving successful application transformation.

What is application modernisation?

Application modernisation is the process of transforming legacy applications to leverage modern technologies like cloud computing.

This transformation aims to enhance efficiency, agility, and performance, ensuring that these systems remain valuable investments for the future. Modernised applications help organisations reduce operational overhead and enhance overall business agility.

One of the core goals of application modernisation is to make legacy applications cloud-ready. This involves updating the application’s architecture to take advantage of cloud-native infrastructure, APIs, and modular designs, which can significantly improve scalability and integration with other modern technologies.

App modernisation represents a significant shift in how businesses manage their existing applications.

It involves not just technological upgrades but also strategic planning and process improvements to ensure that the transformed applications can meet current and future business demands during their application modernisation journey.

Why should a business consider application modernisation?

Customer demands are constantly changing, and outdated systems can hinder a company’s ability to innovate and grow.

Transforming legacy applications enables businesses to meet evolving expectations and avoid the limitations of outdated systems, ultimately enhancing customer and employee experiences.

Maintaining outdated applications poses several risks, including:

• high maintenance costs,
• integration difficulties,
• and security risks.

These issues can drain resources and impede a company’s ability to focus on innovation and strategic initiatives. The benefits of application modernisation extend beyond cost savings and operational efficiency.

Modernised applications offer increased deployment frequency, improved uptime, and enhanced agility, allowing businesses to respond quickly to market demands and innovate more effectively.

To manage the complexity of outdated systems and mitigate technical debt, businesses must adopt a structured approach to modernisation that emphasises continuous improvement in the development process and configuration management.

This involves conducting thorough assessments, planning incremental changes, and defining clear goals to ensure a smooth transition to modern platforms.

The key benefits of application modernisation

Updating legacy systems ensures they continue to provide value and support business objectives. Strategic investment in application modernisation can lead to substantial improvements in performance, functionality, and overall business value.

One of the most significant benefits of application modernisation is enhanced business agility. Modernised applications enable businesses to innovate more effectively, respond quickly to market changes, and maintain a competitive advantage.

Additionally, modernisation can improve business processes by enhancing data integrity and operational efficiency, leading to more streamlined and effective workflows.

Leveraging cloud services as part of the modernisation process offers further advantages, such as improved scalability, security, and accessibility. Automation tools can also play an important role in managing legacy applications, freeing up valuable resources and allowing teams to focus on innovation.

A successful application modernisation strategy often combines technology upgrades with process improvements, ensuring that the transformed systems can meet current and future business demands.

Read more:

• What is infrastructure modernisation? A complete guide for businesses
• How to digitally transform your business?

Application modernisation strategies for transforming legacy systems

Transforming legacy systems requires a robust application modernisation strategy tailored to modernise legacy applications and the specific needs and goals of the organisation.

Each of the strategies available offers different levels of transformation and can be combined to gain deeper insights through continuous integration to create a comprehensive approach.

The lift and shift strategy, also known as rehosting, involves moving applications to a cloud platform with minimal code changes. This approach ensures a quick migration and addresses immediate operational needs, making it an attractive option for organisations looking to accelerate cloud adoption.

Refactoring, on the other hand, focuses on modifying the internal structure of an existing application to enhance its design, maintainability, and performance without changing its external behavior. This strategy is particularly useful for applications that require optimisation for cloud environments.

Replatforming allows for moderate code adjustments to leverage new platform capabilities while maintaining the core functions of the application. This approach strikes a balance between the minimal changes of rehosting and the extensive modifications of refactoring.

Ultimately, the choice of modernisation strategies will depend on various factors, including the current state of the application, business objectives, and available resources.

How do I choose the right modernisation strategy for my application?

Choosing the right modernisation strategy for your application begins with a detailed assessment of the application landscape. This assessment should include an analysis of the application’s architecture, dependencies, code quality, and alignment with business needs, application complexity, technical debt, budget, and timeline.

The assessment should also evaluate technical characteristics, suitability for cloud migration, ROI, and interdependencies. This comprehensive analysis will uncover the areas where modernisation can have the most significant impact and help prioritise the modernisation efforts.

Developing a long-term application modernisation roadmap is crucial for managing resources effectively and ensuring a smooth transformation.

Read more:

• How to re-engineer applications to achieve scalability
• Total metrics-driven modernisation approach: how to secure the outcomes that matter to your business

What risks are involved in application modernisation?

Technical debt in legacy systems can stifle innovation and complicate future changes. Addressing this requires careful planning and a clear understanding of the application’s architecture and dependencies.

Another key risk is data loss or corruption during the migration process, especially if systems are not adequately backed up or if integration between old and new systems is mishandled.

Outdated systems often have inefficient architectures and complex dependencies, making modernisation challenging. Monolithic applications, in particular, create inflexibility in updates and pose significant integration challenges.

Cost and complexity are common challenges organisations face during application modernisation. It is crucial to have a robust application modernisation strategy that includes careful planning, the right skills, and tools, and a clear understanding of business needs to optimise costs.

User resistance and adoption challenges may arise as well. If the new system changes workflows or user interfaces significantly, employees may struggle to adapt without proper training or change management support.

Finally, a lack of clear objectives or metrics can result in unclear ROI, where the business is unsure whether the modernisation effort has truly delivered value.

What technologies are commonly used in modernised applications?

Application modernisation allows enterprises to leverage the advantages of newer software platforms, tools, architectures, libraries, frameworks, and application modernisation tools for modernising apps.

Key technologies that facilitate application modernisation include:

• Cloud technologies
• Containers
• Kubernetes
• Microservices architecture

These new technologies enable many organisations and most organisations to create more scalable, maintainable, and efficient applications using skilled resources.

Using multi-cloud strategies, which involve two or more public cloud services, can optimise flexibility and improve the modernisation process in modern cloud environments. Azure App Service is another valuable tool that optimises costs, enables confidence in operation, and accelerates feature shipment during application modernisation.

These technologies and tools are important for creating a successful application modernisation strategy on a modern cloud platform, including managed services, private cloud, Microsoft Azure, AWS and hybrid cloud.

An effective modernisation roadmap should outline specific strategies, methodologies, and technologies to be employed during the modernisation process.

Contact us today to explore how we can assist in modernising your applications for a more efficient and future-proof business!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if my application needs modernisation?

You may need modernisation if your application is slow, difficult to maintain, reliant on outdated technology, prone to downtime, or unable to scale with user demand or integrate with newer systems.

What’s the difference between refactoring and rearchitecting?

Refactoring improves the internal code structure without changing external behavior, while rearchitecting involves redesigning the entire system architecture for better scalability, flexibility, and cloud-readiness.

Is moving to the cloud always part of application modernisation?

Not always, but cloud migration is often a key component, as cloud platforms provide on-demand scalability, cost efficiency, and access to modern services that support innovation.

How long does application modernisation take?

It depends on the scope and complexity – smaller rehosting projects can take weeks, while rearchitecting or full rebuilds may take several months or more, especially if done incrementally.

Can legacy systems be partially modernised?

Yes – many organisations use an incremental or hybrid approach, where only high-impact components are modernised first (e.g. via APIs or microservices), while others are updated over time.