Any given business has a wide range of applications in use, but not all may be integrated and compatible. Too often, teams work on a diverse set of software tools in siloed locations, which reduces the likelihood that they can communicate and pull from related data sets.
That’s why “92% of enterprises say they are actively working on at least one app modernization project,” this year, according to this source. Why? To put it simply, modernizing applications improves integration and makes it easier to connect across digital touchpoints.
The process is iterative, and many organizations are starting small, especially those with legacy apps in place. Addressing the burden of legacy applications is the first step. From there, teams can work on moving applications to the cloud and prioritizing the applications they want to replatform.
Organizations that commit to modernizing applications see many benefits: faster development, heightened innovation and increased efficiency. By leveraging scalable infrastructure and agile development, customer satisfaction grows, and operational performance improves.
To ensure that your ROI is worth the effort, consider following these four stages of app modernization to support digital transformation. Order of operations is key here, as each step builds on the next for layered, lasting results.
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Stage 1: Assess Your Applications
The first step of any endeavor is setting clear priorities and objectives. Analyze the current applications’ code bases and evaluate them against your modernization goals. How scalable are your apps? Are they easy to maintain? Are they efficient and useful? Which apps need to be updated first and why? A Strategic Application Modernization Assessment, offered by CDW, offers a big-picture overview of this landscape and can be part of a custom plan for achieving your modernization goals.
Stage 2: Migrate to the Cloud
Once your plan is set, it’s time to migrate your applications to the cloud. According to a 2024 PwC trend report, “78 percent of CIOs and other executives have adopted cloud in most or all parts of their business,” but they are now working to unlock the value of their data. This is key to making sure that all applications are fully optimized.
With cloud as a foundational digital strategy, IT leaders can start customizing their cloud environments. This can mean selecting the right mixture of cloud services and other third-party vendors to boost the business.
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Too often, IT leaders simply default to a familiar public cloud environment and force their apps to fit the cloud’s feature set. Rather than letting the tail wag the dog, base your decision on the cloud service provider’s ability to deliver the specific services you need. This point becomes even more important when organizations are managing their core, edge and cloud data from the cloud itself.
In fact, more companies are opting for heterogeneous cloud computing environments because they allow for more variety in the tech stack and can handle a mixture of workloads at once.
Stage 3: Replatform and Modernize Your Applications
Now that you have a clear understanding of your modernization needs and where your apps will live, you can create cloud-ready applications that meet your needs. This means using modern technologies: containers to enable seamless deployment across multiple environments, microservices to allow each core function to be built independently, artificial intelligence to mine insights from vast amounts of data, and a mix of platform engineering and automation tools to streamline deployment and diagnostics.
Stage 4: Track and Optimize Your Applications
Application modernization is not a one-and-done process. As with any successful initiative, app modernization must be sustained over time. Monitoring tools can help you ensure that your replatformed apps continue to align with your people, processes and data governance strategies.
Businesses also need to set key performance indicators, such as speed to rapidly deploy new updates, ease of use and integration capabilities, to track progress. Review these KPIs often to ensure that your apps and environment continue to meet your organization’s needs.
