Category: Uncategorized

What Is the Use of Microservices in Java?

Posted on February 15, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

Businesses need to respond to the needs of clients alongside evolving business conditions. As a result, many businesses that wonder what the use of microservices in Java is will find this article helpful. However, before discussing Java microservices, we need to explore microservices design concepts in general.

For businesses to keep up, it is essential to have a software application that they can easily deploy, maintain without issues, and that is always available. Even though traditional architecture managed some of this, it had its limitations. As a result, it got to a point where businesses need a dynamic and scalable approach to develop an application to help the future of business.

Microservice Architecture (MSA) is one such new approach. This kind of system design enables swifts and easy changes to individual software services, which is a different approach to traditional monolithic architectures. With MSA, developers can build and deploy applications using scalable, upgraded, and interchangeable parts.

This modular structure can gear business development by fostering the development of agile and innovative functionality in an ideal world; however, decomposing applications can also mirror some models, unlike a monolithic model.

With the advancement of microservices architecture and hype from ballooned expectations to a progressive enlightenment part, people’s understanding of what it can do has changed. This article will explore what is the use of microservices in Java, alongside its importance for digital transformation and some use cases.

We define microservices as applications that are grouped or arranged as a conglomerate of loosely-coupled services. Here are some general characteristics:

· Every microservice comes with its data model and can manage their individual data

· There is the migration of data between microservices with message busses, like Apache Kafka

· Each microservice is isolated and autonomous, functioning within limited scopes that bring together a single and effective piece of your business functionality

Understanding the Use of Microservices in Java

Java microservices is a collection of software applications written using the Java programming language. The Java programming languages are structured using a restricted scope that works together to bring about a considerable solution. The use of microservices in Java is, ultimately, to use codes to engage the vast world of Java tools, systems, and frameworks.

The entire microservices are limited in capacity when forming a modularized architecture. We can liken microservices architecture to the assembly line in a manufacturing company. Each microservice is synonymous with a station present in the assembly line.

The way a station takes care of a unique task also applies to a microservice. It is safe to liken each station (microservice) to experts with vast knowledge in their field. This way, efficiency, consistency, quality of workflow, and output are maintained.

How Java Microservices Work

In general, a microservices architecture represents a pattern of design in which each microservice is a small piece of the pie – in this case, the pie is the overall system. All microservices have their unique function, which is essential to the overall result.

The task doesn’t have to be complicated as it could be as simple as estimating the mean deviation in a given set of data or counting the two-letter words in a text. The idea behind a successful microservice is empowering the system to identify and recognize a unique subtask. Since each microservice will need to transfer its data to the next one, the architecture requires a lightweight messaging system for such data transfer.

There are a series of Java-based frameworks used to construct Java microservices. A few examples are:

· Spring Boot: Spring Boot is a well-known framework that helps build Java applications like microservices. It is effective as it makes the setup easy and the user has no issue with the configuration process, which helps kickstart its running.

· Jersey: this unique Java framework helps simplify the formation of REST web services. With this, communication between various microservice layers will be effective.

· Swagger: It helps build API. It is a Java framework that facilitates interaction between various microservices.

Benefits and Advantages of Microservices Architecture

For everyone new to the world of microservices, this section gives a brief overview. What is the use of microservices in Java? What benefits will it trigger for your business?

Over the years, microservices and their components have been growing in popularity. Based on research, the global cloud microservices market is predicted to grow up to $1.8 billion over the next couple of years.

Due to the benefits of microservices architecture for application development and databases, it is gaining traction. Typically, microservices architecture converts a large software project into a series of smaller and independent ones that people can easily manage. This feature offers some essential benefits to IT teams and their firms.

For everyone wondering what the use of microservices in Java is, here are some benefits:

1. Productive and Focused Teams

The central idea behind microservices is dividing huge applications into small, manageable units. Each unit will be managed by a small, laser-focused team that takes care of their service and ensures they work with the right technologies, tools, and processes.

Being in charge of a specific function will help the team know what is expected alongside their deliverable timeline. With this, their productivity can also increase.

2. Keeping Tabs on Security

The same system that checks for errors also checks all security issues. As a result, should a section of the application be compromised or experience a security breach, other application areas will not be affected.

This isolation makes it easy to identify issues and take care of them on time without experiencing any downtime.

3. Quick Deployments

Every microservice has its specific process and database which guides its operations. With this, the IT team will be spared from being tied with their team on the progress of other applications. Also, there is no need to delay deploying code until an application is ready.

The microservices teams can organize and structure their deployment for faster project completion. Ultimately, the speed and rate of application deployment also increases.

4. Isolation

Another thing that makes Java microservices profitable is their resilience due to isolation. Any component might fail, but developers need not shut the entire system down.

There is the option of using another service such that the application will run independently. The team can correct any issues without affecting the entire application.

5. Flexibility

With the microservices approach, developers and IT professionals can select the perfect tools to help them with their tasks. Building and equipping each server using the proper framework will be possible without compromising the interaction between such microservices.

6. Improvement in Quality

Since their work involves focused modules, the overall quality of the application system increases with a microservices architecture.

The IT team can focus on essential and well-defined functionality to come up with superb code. With this, they can produce high-quality code that works, making it reliable with the ability to deal with any issues in the code.

7. Scalability

The architecture of microservices hinges on small components; the IT team can quickly scale up or down based on the specific requirements of an element. The isolation feature makes it possible for apps to run independently, even with huge adjustments.

Without a doubt, microservices provide the ideal architecture for firms working with various devices and platforms.

8. Continuous Delivery

Microservices engage cross-functional teams to take care of the whole life cycle of an application with the continuous delivery approach. This is different from monolithic applications requiring dedicated teams to work on various functions like database, server-side logic, user interface, etc.

It becomes pretty easy to test and debug with the simultaneous collaboration of the operation, testing, and development team on a project. This approach makes it easy to have incremental development code, which continuously undergoes testing and deployment.

9. Evolutionary

Developers that cannot predict the nature of the device that will run their app will find microservices architecture helpful. Developers can produce fast updates since the apps will neither be stopped or slowed down.

Even though microservices offer a series of advantages and benefits like upgraded productivity with the selection of tools, there are a couple of cons. For instance, the team needs to use various coding languages and libraries, which might eventually affect the team negatively if unprepared. However, teams and projects working on a vast app will find microservices architecture a terrific choice.

Microservices in Java: When and When Not to Use It

Without a doubt, microservices are extremely lucrative. However, you need to assess the benefits and be confident that they apply to your exact business needs. You also need to be sure you have the workforce to navigate the challenges.

For instance, it is important to know if your components:

· Have manageable technical debt and good test coverage

· Can handle the cloud and its requirement for scalability

· Adjust and have regular deployment

· Trigger continuous frustration

Microservices in Java: When You Should Not Use It

IT teams are usually pretty eager to consider microservices since it appears trendy. However, you shouldn’t use it because it is trendy as it might make your firm a victim of Conway’s Law. According to this law, the architectural structure of the application they develop might have a huge resemblance to the app’s creator, not the specific needs of users.

This is a problem for many firms due to their huge team, as changing the structure is not easy. Adjusting the form and structure of such a huge team to meet new architectural strategies might not be an easy task.

Best Instances to Use Microservices in Java

Rather than simply following something trendy, firms should consider what the use of microservices in Java is geared toward and structure their architecture on the application’s specific needs. In other words, developers need to know exactly what they are trying to achieve – scalability or resilience?

An important reason to consider microservices is to enlarge unique parts of your architecture quickly. When checking your application’s needs, you may realize that the entire app might not be scalable, just the essential parts.

A good example is the payment system connected to the app of Netflix service. Ideally, this system needs to be strong and incredibly scalable so that if thousands of people want to make a payment simultaneously, it is possible to scale it up and accommodate their needs. The payment aspect, without a doubt, needs to be scalable, while another aspect of the app might not have to be scalable.

Conditions for Businesses to Use Microservices

Microservices come with significant benefits, and firms that don’t join the train might miss a lot. Despite how promising microservices are, however, it is not the right fit for all businesses.

You need to ensure your business can manage it before using microservices in Java. Here are some limitations for businesses planning to use it:

1. Strong Monitoring

Since each service has its own personal language, APIs, and platform, you will be in control of various teams working together on various parts of the microservices project. Strong monitoring is essential for effective management and monitoring of the system.

You need to know when a machine fails to track the issue.

2. Ability to Embrace DevOps Culture

Your business needs to embrace DevOps culture and practice to be effective in cross-functional teams. Ideally, developers are charged with features and functionalities while the operation team takes care of challenges in production.

For DevOps, however, everyone is in charge of service provisioning.

3. Testing Can Prove Complicated.

Testing is not so easy or straightforward with microservices. Every service comes with its peculiarities which could be transitive or direct. With the addition of features, there will be new dependencies.

It might be impossible to monitor everything. With increasing services, the complexity also increases. As a result, you need a microservices architecture that can handle every level of fault – network lag, database errors, service unavailability, etc.

Are Microservices in Java Right For You?

It is clear that the use of Microservices in Java can benefit your business immensely. It can move your business to greater heights and the next level. However, this is not a license to jump into it as it might not be the best for your firm.

Ensure you understand if your firm will benefit from microservices and you have all it takes to handle it. Contact an expert to help explore the needs of your business and see if Microservices in Java are right for you. B ook a demo with vFunction today to help you understand how it works.

SOA vs Microservices: Their Contrasts, Differences, and Key Features

Posted on February 10, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

Most enterprise software applications built until recently were monoliths. Monoliths have a huge code base and run as a single application or service. They did the job, but then developers started running into a brick wall. Monoliths were problematic to scale. No single developer could understand the entire application. Making changes, fixing bugs, and adding new features became time-consuming, error-prone, and frustrating.

In the late 1990s a new architectural pattern called Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), emerged as a possible panacea for these problems. The software community did not warm up to it in a big way; hence, SOA gave way to another pattern: microservices. The SOA vs microservices debate represents evolutionary responses for building and running applications distinct from the monolithic architecture.

SOA resembles microservices, but they serve different purposes. Few companies understand the distinctions between these architectures or have expertise in decomposing monolithic applications.

Both architectural patterns are viable options for those considering moving away from traditional, monolithic architectures. They are suitable for decomposing monolithic applications into smaller components that are flexible and easier to work with. Both SOA and microservices can scale to meet the operational demands and speed of big data applications.

This article looks at the basic concepts of SOA and microservices so that you can understand the differences between them and identify which is more appropriate for your business. We’ll look at their origins, study what makes them unique, and for what circumstances they are most suited.

SOA vs Microservices: What Are They?

The common denominator between microservices and SOA is that they were meant to remedy the issues of monolithic architectures. SOA appeared first in the late 1990s. Microservices probably premiered at a software conference in 2011. They are both service-based architectures but differ in how they rely on services.

These are some key areas of critical difference:

Component sharing
Communication
Data governance
Architecture

A lot of ambiguity surrounds SOA, even though architects conceptualized it about a decade before microservices. Some even consider microservices to be “SOA done right.”

What Is A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)?

SOA is an enterprise architecture approach to software development based on reusable software components or services. Each service in SOA comprises both the code and data integrations needed to execute a specific business function.

Business functions that SOA handles as services could range from processing an order, authenticating users into a web app, or updating a customer’s mailing address.

In an SOA application, distinct components provide services to other modules through a communication protocol over a network. SOA employs two concepts that have huge implications for development across the enterprise to do this successfully.

The first is that the service interfaces are loosely coupled. This means that applications can call their interfaces without knowing how their functionality is implemented underneath.

Because of how their interfaces are published, along with the services’ loose coupling, the development team can reuse these software components in other applications across the enterprise. This saves a lot of engineering time and effort.

But this also poses a risk. Because of the shared access across the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus), problems in one service can affect the working of connected services. SOA applications have traditionally used ESB to provide a means of controlling and coordinating services.

Unlike microservices that emerged after the introduction of cloud platforms that enabled far better-distributed computing SOA is less about designing a modular application. SOA is more focused on how to compose an application by integrating discretely maintained and distributed software components.

Tech standards such as XML enable SOA. They make it easier for components to cooperate and communicate over networks such as TCP/IP. XML has become a key ingredient in SOA.

So, SOA makes it easier for components over various networks to work with each other. This is in contrast to microservice containers that need a service mesh to communicate with each other.

Web services built on SOA architecture are more independent. Moreover, SOA is implemented independently of technology, vendor, or product.

Features Of SOA

These are some noteworthy characteristics of SOA:

Provides an interface to solve challenging integration problems
Uses the XML schema to communicate with providers and suppliers
More cost-efficient in the short-term for software development because of the reuse of services
Improves performance and security with messaging monitoring

SOA provides four different service types:

Functional services: used for business-critical applications and services
Enterprise services: designed to implement functionality
Application services: used for developing and deploying apps
Infrastructure services: used for backend processes such as security and authentication

Each SOA service comprises these three components:

An interface that defines and describes how a service provider executes requests from a service customer
A contract which defines how the service provider and the service customer interacts
The implementation service code

What Are Microservices?

Microservices architecture is an approach to software application development that builds functions as suites of independently deployable services. They are composed of loosely coupled, isolated components performing specialized functions. Given the ambiguity arising from SOA architecture, microservices were perhaps the next logical step in SOA’s evolution.

Unlike SOA that communicates with ESB, microservices use simpler application programming interfaces (APIs).

Microservices are built as small independent service units with well-defined interfaces. They were conceptualized so that each microservice could be operated and independently deployed by a small team of 5 to 10 developers.

Microservices are organized around a business domain in an application. Because they are small and independent units, microservices can scale better than other software engineering approaches. These individual units of services eventually combine to create a powerful application.

Microservices are often deployed in containers, providing an efficient framework of services that have independent functionality, are fine-grained, portable, and flexible. These containers are also platform-agnostic, enabling each service to maintain a private database and operating system and run independently.

Microservices are predominantly a cloud-native architectural approach–usually built and deployed on the cloud.

One salient difference between microservices and SOA is that microservices have a high degree of cohesion. This cohesion minimizes sharing through what is known as a bounded context. It represents the relationship between a microservice and its data, forming a standalone unit. So bounded context produces minimal dependencies by coupling a component and its data to constitute a single unit.

Characteristics Of A Microservice Architecture

Here are common characteristics of microservices:

Loosely coupled modules
Modularization that enhances system maintenance and product management
High scalability potential with low cost of implementation
Platform agnostic, making it easy to implement and use many different technologies
Ideal for evolutionary systems that have to be agile and flexible to accommodate unforeseen change

SOA vs Microservices

While microservices structure themselves as a series of distinct, single-purpose services, SOA creates a group of modular services that communicate with each other to support applications.

We have listed below the core differences between these architectural approaches.

Scope of Exposure

At their core, SOA architectures have enterprise scope, but microservices have application scope. Understanding this difference in scope enables organizations to realize how these two might complement each other in a system.

Size and Scope of Projects

Microservices have a much smaller size and scope of services in the development process. Also, being fine-grained dramatically reduces its size even further. The larger size and scope of SOA align better with more complicated integrations and cross-enterprise collaboration.

Reusability

The primary goal of SOA is reusability and component sharing to increase application scalability and efficiency. A microservice doesn’t place such a high premium on reuse, although reuse is welcomed if it improves decoupling through code copying and accepting data duplication.

Data Duplication and Storage

SOA aims to give applications the ability to synchronously get and change data from their primary source. The advantage of this is that it reduces the need for the application to maintain complex data synchronization patterns. So, SOA systems share the same data storage units.

Conversely, microservices believe in independence. A microservice typically has local access to all the data it needs to maintain its independence from other microservices. As a result, some data duplication in the system is permissible under this approach. Data duplication increases the complexity of a system, so the need for it should be balanced with the cost of performance and agility.

Communication And Synchronous Calls

SOA uses synchronous protocols like RESTful APIs to make reusable components available throughout the system. However, inside a microservice application, such synchronous calls can introduce unwanted dependencies, thus threatening the benefit of microservice independence. Hence, this dependency may cause latency, affect performance, and create a general loss of resilience.

Therefore, in contrast to SOA architecture, asynchronous communication is preferred in microservices. It often uses a publish/subscribe model in event sourcing to keep the microservice up-to-date on changes occurring in other components.

The ESB handles communication in SOA. Although ESB provides the mechanism through which services “talk” with each other, the downside is that it slows communication. As a single point of failure, it can easily clog up the entire system with requests for a particular service.

Microservices don’t have that burden because they use simpler messaging systems like language-agnostic APIs.

Service Granularity

Microservices are highly specialized. Each microservice does one thing only. This isn’t the case for the services that comprise SOA architectures-they can range from small, specialized services to enterprise-wide services.

Governance

SOA believes in the principle of shared resources, so its data governance mechanisms are standard across all services. Microservices don’t allow for consistent governance policies because of their flexibility.

Interoperability

Microservices use widely used, lightweight protocols such as HTTP/REST (Representational State Transfers) and JMS (Java Messaging Service). On the other hand, SOA works with more diverse messaging protocols like SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), AMQP (Advanced Messaging Queuing Protocol), and MSMQ (Microsoft Messaging Queuing).

Speed

Microservices prioritize independence and minimize sharing in favor of duplication. As a result, microservices operate at a faster pace. However, SOA speeds up development and troubleshooting because all parts of the application share a common architecture.

Tabulated Differences Between SOA vs Microservices

SOA	Microservices
Focused on increasing application service reusability	More focused on decoupling
Web services share resources across services	Built to host services that can operate independently
Not as much strong emphasis on DevOps and continuous integration	The preeminence of DevOps, along with Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines
Communicates through ESB	Uses API protocols and less elaborate messaging systems
Uses SOAP and AMQP protocols for remote services	Lightweight protocols such as HTTP, REST, or Thrift APIs
SOA services share data storage	Microservices often have independent data storage
Concerned with business functionality reuse	Focused on creating standalone units through “bounded context”
Provides common standards and governance	Relaxed governance with emphasis on collaboration, independence, and freedom
The use of containers is rare and less popular	Uses containers and containerization
Best suited for large-scale integrations	Best for cloud-native, web-based applications
More cumbersome, less flexible deployment	Quick and easy deployment

Is Microservices a Better SOA??

There’s much more to the SOA vs Microservices debate than we’ve presented here because it’s a highly technical and vast (and contentious) subject. However, we have tried to provide enough compelling information by highlighting the essential points to consider when deciding to adopt a microservices architecture for your project, as the logical successor to SOA.

As the first and only platform to have solved the challenge of automatically transforming monolithic Java applications into cloud-enabled versions as a reliable and repeatable process, vFunction has extensive expertise and experience in SOA and microservices architectures.

Contact vFunction today to further discuss your software architectural challenges and transformation options.

Four Advantages of Refactoring That Java Architects Love

Posted on February 10, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

For many teams, application development has morphed into an assembly line process, with each person learning to optimize their own workflows to get their work done. However, during this process, there has been little exploration of the process as a whole, and rarely has any effort been put into understanding how these workflows can be enhanced or how each stage of the process could be optimized. Here’s where the advantages of refactoring come in.

The large discrepancy between current capabilities and those demanded by current consumer expectations means that developers spend much of their time reworking the same basic steps or getting out of rhythm. Moreover, research has shown that programmers spend about 60% of their time reading code, with many considering it an arduous task.

Modern application development tools introduce structured efforts to capture some of these benefits by making refactoring a requirement of the software development life-cycle. Refactoring has become the “secret sauce” of making code better, and the ability to build on top of these efforts will only enhance your workflow.

Advantages of Refactoring: Efficiency, Readability, Adaptability

The advantages of refactoring are numerous. Because we can reuse code, we’re able to save time by removing repetitive work. We can also improve the experience of reading our code by improving our readability.

We can improve our efficiency by applying the “infrastructure approach”. That is, we can apply our code changes in a way that makes them faster and easier to understand.

A commonplace for code change to occur is within front-end code, where new code changes are made to accommodate the new data being presented to the user. In the following sections, we’ll talk about how we can make our front-end code faster so that it’s easier to read and maintain.

Refactoring: A Brief History

Code refactoring is a process of restructuring existing computer code for the purpose of improving its design and/or structure without changing its functionality. Refactoring is also a term that has been adopted by the community and industry to mean the process of creating more reusable code. For this post, we’ll use the words “refactor” and “reuse” interchangeably, but there are two major differences between the two.

“Refactoring” is a term that came from the Computer Science (CS) and Systems Engineering (SE) disciplines. It is a kind of code transformation whereby a code source is made into a more reusable form. For instance, when we use this kind of refactoring on our internal apps, we’re making code that can be reused by other teams.

“Reuse” is a term that came from the Software Engineering discipline and means the ability to reuse code and eliminate the need to write a new class each time we need to modify an existing code unit. For example, if we know we’re making changes to a service and want to be able to reuse it, we might introduce a new abstraction that wraps the existing code and brings it within our scope. We can then use our new code unit in the same way we used the original unit.

The advantage of refactoring is that it not only makes our code more reusable, but it also makes it simpler to understand. It is easy to figure out what’s happening in a coding unit if we can determine its original purpose, and it also makes changes within these units much easier to spot. It also provides a way for each developer to easily modify different components of the app without having to duplicate efforts.

Common Refactoring Criteria

In the following sections, we’ll look at some of the popular refactoring offerings in the industry today. We’ll do so by separating out the “high-level” approach to refactoring and the “contextual” approach, by examining the methods required, the principal differences, and their benefits and drawbacks. Then we’ll take a look at the frameworks that support these “high level” refactorings and which offer support for the contextually-based refactorings.

High-Level Refactoring

When considering the advantages of refactoring, the first kind of refactoring that we’ll look at is called “Code Proposals”. Code Proposals are designed to perform the initial transformation of an existing code unit into a more reusable form.

We can “high level” refactor code in the following way:

Write a version of our application that we can reuse. For each of our service classes, rename each instance to a different name. Change all instances to return the new version of the object, without updating any functionality that the existing implementation already provides.

We’ll assume that the example service object from above is a generic instance that wraps all kinds of services. After we finish this, we’ll create a new, compact code unit that contains all the changes above. In this code unit, the instances all implement the new interface, but they still have the original functionality.

Since we no longer need to return an instance of the service in the initial version of the coding unit, we can do so by simply removing the service method from each instance.

Another advantage of this refactoring is that we can see which code units we actually need to refactor. By doing this, we can determine which code units require fewer modifications, which can be delegated, or which may be available from an API.

Contextually-based Refactoring

The second kind of refactoring we’ll take a look at is known as “Code Context.” In this example, we’ll apply the refactoring to an existing code unit, by performing one or more “micro transformations” on a different code unit.

We can contextually refactor our code in the following way:

Start by adding the code we’d like to use to our existing code unit. Update the code using this new code unit.

While this approach may seem more advanced, it has several benefits:

• We can more easily understand what’s happening in our existing code unit.

• We can reuse any code that’s already implemented in the original code unit.

• We can make any changes we need, and then remove the code that the original code unit depended on.

Because we’re not modifying the code units directly, it can be easier to understand the order in which the code changes take place.

Most importantly, we can perform many minor changes to the existing code unit, and then remove the code that depends on those changes. It also helps to eliminate duplication in the new code and adds more details into the comments that describe the changes. This is a major advantage of refactoring.

To improve performance, we can have each micro-change performed in a separate transaction. We can also define the transaction as non-blocking so that it does not block the main application thread.

Most importantly, because the original code unit is still available in the coding unit, we can change or remove the code, and then restart our application without recompiling, or even restarting the server. We can perform this refactoring on any number of code units, each of which we can then reuse, instead of rewriting each unit multiple times.

Refactoring for Reusability

Some programming languages have built-in support for “code changes”, which make it easy to organize and compose different elements of a program in a manner that makes them easily accessible to clients. These languages make it simple to express methods that are used to make changes to the program.

We can use these “code changes” to focus on improving the structure of our code without modifying the API calls themselves. This helps to make code changes easier, by giving us a way to refactor the code that calls our APIs.

Although this approach is less frequently used, it is definitely an alternative to writing generic code and makes it easier to combine code that depends on the same basic data model.

Advantage 1: Container-Based Reusability

One of the most significant advantages of composing reusable code is that we can reuse this data structure as many times as we want. In this process, we can reuse the same code, and we won’t have to worry about making sure that we do not introduce a collision of different code pieces.

It can be tempting to keep a large set of reusable code pieces in a single place, but it is often possible to reuse different components in different contexts.

Advantage 2: Reusable Code Architecture

In a typical web application, we’ll have many different elements. A typical mobile application is comprised of multiple elements, depending on the level of functionality and complexity of the application.

Because a web application can be used by many different browsers, in different clients, in different locales, we must make sure that our code architecture allows our web code to be changed and adapted over time.

When we do code changes, we often need to make several separate changes and ensure that we haven’t introduced any conflicts. That is, we must rewrite a web service in several places.

Here are some ways that we can improve our code architecture to make it easier to make changes:

Reduce the number of configuration locations. Reduce the number of places that a piece of code needs to live.

Make all of the configuration information local. Reduce the amount of configuration information that needs to be stored and maintained.

Make all of the configuration information static. If it’s not reusable, don’t put it in the code.

The optimal code architecture does not eliminate any of these patterns, but it should remove the patterns that cause redundant or unpredictable code changes.

Advantage 3: Reduced Complexity

Another way that we can improve the readability and maintainability of our code is by reducing the number of dependencies. If you want to experience the advantages of refactoring, you have to consider that the fewer dependencies, the easier it is to move from one level to another.

We can reduce the number of routes that need to be added to our application by identifying and eliminating unnecessary routes.

We can reduce the number of parameters that need to be passed around the application by defining interfaces that specify the parameters that the client needs to pass.

We can also reduce the number of components that we have to use by writing reusable components.

Advantage 4: Reusable Components

Programming is a collaborative activity. A well-structured team works together to develop a project. In such a team, we can create reusable components that take a set of tasks, provide an API for them to be shared between different developers, and are testable in all the different circumstances in which they will be used.

A reusable component is a common web component that provides an interface and a set of functions to its clients. A good example of a reusable component is a web form. A form allows a user to submit data and provides some validation to confirm that the data sent to the server is correct.

To make a form reusable, we need to create a reusable directive. An interface for a reusable directive is very similar to an interface for a web form. It defines what a directive does, what arguments it has, and some basic validation. It should be noted that reusable directives need to be tested using unit testing, because they may need to be able to adapt to new browsers, new client operating systems, or new interfaces that can be added to the directive.

Experiencing the Advantages of Refactoring Doesn’t Have to Be Elusive

Many of the best practices outlined here, while not exclusively defined as “programming” or “software” best practices, are deeply rooted in both, and if done correctly can provide for the best developer experience for our users.

By removing the top layer from the stack and creating reusable components, we can remove unnecessary plumbing and concentrate on the value that we are trying to deliver to the user.

By introducing testable code and writing reusable components, we ensure that our developers will spend more time writing code that fulfills their specific requirements.

By identifying and eliminating unnecessary dependencies, we can remove the time wasted in working around dependencies that we don’t need and concentrate on working towards delivering a well-structured, yet reusable application.

With intuitive algorithms and an artificially intelligent API engine, vFunction is the first and only platform for developers and architects that automatically separates complex monolithic Java applications into microservices, restoring engineering velocity and optimizing cloud benefits. This scalable, repeatable factory model is complemented by next-generation, state-of-the-art components, and blueprints, which are architected with microservices in mind and allow developers to reuse those components across multiple projects. For more info, request a demo or contact vFunction today.

Legacy Application Modernization Approaches: What Architects Need to Know

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

7 Approaches To Legacy Java Modernization for Architects

The need for new technology to replace legacy software applications isn’t new. Back in 2003, Microsoft did an ad campaign called “evolve.” Television screens had lots of commercials that showed dinosaurs in business suits. These dinosaurs talked about the need to upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Office.

Older versions, Microsoft argued, had become dinosaurs. This was especially true since most people ran versions of Office written before the year 2000. Sadly, more than 15 years later, IT departments still struggle with the problem of dinosaur programs. Fortunately, various legacy application modernization approaches provide an alternative to completely starting over.

Of course, most of these approaches depend on moving legacy systems into the cloud. And according to Deloitte, security, and cost are among the biggest reasons for this overall shift. Applications stored in the cloud often benefit from the best available security, especially since cloud computing providers emphasize security. In addition, costs depend on usage rather than the right of access generally. This way, businesses don’t pay for what they don’t use.

Using one of these legacy application modernization approaches helps your business

Here’s the thing: While the Microsoft ads of 2003 were offbeat and even offensive to some, the company was making an important point. For most companies, having modern applications and computer systems fosters efficiency.

Most of us know what it’s like to swear at our computers because it is running slowly or run out to the tech repair store because it’s malfunctioning. These misadventures waste our time and often cost money we’d rather not spend. At the same time, owning a newer computer and keeping it updated reduces our overall risk.

If your business has custom computer programs that predate modern programming languages, then you face similar problems to the owner of an antique laptop or desktop. There is a good chance that your IT department spends a lot of time fixing these programs because they malfunction. Worse, you likely need to hire a highly experienced tech professional who understands those old languages, creating a high maintenance cost. Combined with other factors, legacy applications can lead to significant amounts of tech debt over time.

Luckily, modernizing your legacy applications lets the business reduce costs. And, if you choose the best legacy application modernization approach for your tech stack, it’ll make your business more agile overall. With that in mind, let’s look at the options.

Here are 7 legacy system modernization approaches

The best modernization approach should make your systems easier to operate and maintain no matter what kind of business you’re running. At the same time, you’ll want to avoid confusing users or exposing your business to excessive risk. Selecting the right approach should help on both fronts, but each has different strengths and weaknesses.

1. Encapsulate the legacy application

One of the easiest legacy application modernization approaches is encapsulation. With encapsulation, you essentially take the legacy code and break it into pieces. This approach preserves much of the code and all of the data. However, each segment now operates independently and talks to other pieces through an API. By breaking the old, monolithic architecture into pieces, you’ll let the entire system run more efficiently.

At the same time, an encapsulated application is much easier to fix when there are problems. Your employees can often work in unaffected areas of the program. For instance, if the database section works fine but the payment processing won’t operate, employees might still perform other customer service functions. They wouldn’t be able to take payments over the phone, but at least they could solve some customer inquiries.

In addition, encapsulating programs into microservices helps preserve much of the old user experience. It would shorten the employee learning curve and reduce the chances of bugs from unfamiliar functionalities. Plus, the old database information typically doesn’t change, so you don’t risk losing very much if your company is heavily reliant on customer data or something similar. This can be a major advantage.

2. Change the legacy application’s host

Another relatively simple legacy application modernization approach is rehosting. Here, you essentially move the old system into new architecture without changing the overall code. Essentially, you change the place where the application runs. Often, this means migrating your application to the cloud. However, you can move it to shared servers, a private cloud, or a public cloud. The option you choose depends largely on who will use the modernized application.

Where you rehost, the legacy application will depend on different factors. For instance, if your business is a high-security operation, you’ll need a high-security cloud partner or physical server. Examples include AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud or a super modern server.

Of course, this approach has one main weakness: it doesn’t eliminate antique code. This code can still cause problems through bugs and other breakdowns. Likewise, the existing code isn’t as agile as fresh or adapted coding.

3. Change the legacy application’s platform

More complicated is a runtime platform change. Here, you’ll take a newer runtime platform, and insert the old functionality codes. You’ll end up with a mosaic that mixes the old in with the new. From the end user’s perspective, the program operates the same way it was before modernization, so they don’t need to learn much in the way of new features. At the same time, your legacy application will run faster than before and be easier to update or repair.

On the flip side, though, much of the old code remains. That means that, on occasion, you may still need to make changes in those ancient programming languages. The overall applications will be more secure, but much of the tech debt remains even as your program runs on ever-newer operating systems.

4. Refactor your legacy application

Among legacy application modernization approaches, refactoring is one of the more complicated because it fundamentally changes your original code. Basically, what you do here is take the best parts of your code, then remove what doesn’t work for you anymore. For instance, you might have a payment portal that only works with PayPal, but not with Square or other, more modern, options. In this case, you’ll keep the PayPal functionality but also add support for the other options. Or you’ll remove a widget that no longer works so that it doesn’t affect your tech stack anymore.

Here’s the thing with refactoring: because you’re removing the dead wood, you will modernize the system in ways that make it work much better. At the same time, the modernized system will work the same as the old one did, at least on the front end.

On the other hand, you’re fundamentally altering the code. With this comes the risk that the changes will upset other parts of your tech stack. Refactoring needs to happen very carefully and with consistent compatibility checks. But if it works well, you’ll remove the old tech debt. From there, you can innovate further as needed.

5. Rearchitect your application for better functionality

Beyond refactoring, there’s rearchitecting your legacy application. This legacy application modernization approach essentially takes the best of your old application, then makes it better with new technologies.

In other words, you change the programming architecture while stopping short of a complete rewrite. Essentially, this is like a full home renovation, where the house is stripped to the rafters and rebuilt inside. What remains is the basic structure. From here, contractors rebuild something that’s better inside and only looks the same on the outside.

Rearchitecting has two disadvantages. First, you’ll lose much of the old application architecture. If the existing architecture works for your company on the back end, then this could represent a significant loss. In addition, this option might not work very well for companies with complicated databases. Databases are relatively simple software, but it’s easy to “scramble” the data when you change the code. That could be a problem.

Second, if you rearchitect the legacy application, it’ll significantly change the user experience. This can be a good thing in some situations, such as when the system runs slowly, or people find it frustrating to use. But as the saying goes, if something isn’t broken, then don’t fix it. Leaving a practical user experience in place can be quite advantageous.

6. Rebuild the application

Among legacy application modernization approaches, this is the most complicated. Simply put, you’ll scrap everything and rebuild the application from scratch. The new program will have the same function as the old one.

Often, your IT staff will create the new application to have a similar user experience as the old program. And at the same time, the scope and specifications will be the same. Basically, the entire back end will be new, but the front end won’t be much different. Front-end changes tend to be cosmetic.

By far, the most significant advantage of rebuilding is that there isn’t any old code for your IT department to maintain in the future. Since everything is brand new, it should also run like new and not have compatibility problems with other applications in your stack or with company hardware.

On the other hand, a complete rebuild means that your IT department will need to test your new software for bugs. And after you’ve started using the new tool, bugs will continue to show up for a while. As a rule, this means that you can have operational disruptions while tech support diagnoses and fixes those problems. Sometimes, it can take a bit for everything to be perfect.

7. Replace the old system

Finally, you can replace the old application with a completely new one. While this isn’t a legacy application modernization approach per se, it does move your business out of the obsolete software.

Unfortunately, this also means you’ll need to migrate all your old data to the new system. And as some of us have learned the hard way, data doesn’t always want to move. Incompatible applications sometimes can’t share data without conversion. You can lose valuable data that might not be easily replaceable in the process.

For most, encapsulation and migration are the answer.

Some legacy application modernization approaches can be performed together. In particular, it’s possible to encapsulate an old, monolithic application into microservices, then migrate these to the cloud. Many companies use this approach because it’s relatively easy to perform and achieves the dual purpose of moving to the cloud while preserving what has worked well for decades.

Another advantage to this holistic approach is that it’s relatively simple, safe, and inexpensive. Because the programmers won’t significantly alter the underlying code, there’s little risk that you will lose key functions or important customer data. The process preserves the best of your existing tech stack while making it easier to operate and maintain.

At the same time, the encapsulate and migrate approach lets you move to the cloud easily. During the encapsulation process, your staff will write the API and other coding extras to fit well within the cloud. Then, you can operate more securely and use the optimal number of resources in real-time.

Modernization is easy with vFunction

Want an easy way to modernize your legacy applications through encapsulation and migration? You need to check out vFunction. This is a program that, when installed, automatically analyzes your legacy application. Then, it determines which functionalities should be broken down into microservices without your team needing to put sticky notes on the wall. By doing this, the program saves time. Once your team approves the microservices, the program automatically performs the transition and links them via API. Finally, the application helps perform the cloud migration to your service of choice. Ready for the easiest way to modernize your legacy applications? Contact us for a free demonstration.

Why Cloud Migration Is Important

Posted on February 8, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

The Case for Prioritizing Cloud Migration For Legacy Java Apps

The digital revolution has brought about a new era. The need for an integrated solution that houses and aggregates customer data, channeling it to its best possible channels, is what has propelled cloud systems to the forefront of digital change.

Cloud hosting is one of the most effective web technologies introduced recently. You can use cloud hosting for various reasons, including data storage when a business wants to move all of its data and digital infrastructure to the cloud.

This article will examine why cloud migration for legacy Java applications is important, its benefits, and some of the details to watch out for.

Why Cloud Migration Is Important: Cloud Computing

According to Forbes, despite nearly 98 percent of businesses running their on-premises hardware servers to sustain IT architecture, the COVID 19 pandemic has forced some changes. Additionally, 77 percent of organizations have one or several parts of their systems in the cloud. Companies are shifting from legacy systems and migrating to the cloud to ensure business continuity.

Cloud usage and expenditure will rise according to decision-makers polled globally. The report further indicates that businesses continue to support multi-cloud and hybrid cloud infrastructure strategies. They are also spending more with vendors across the board because of the higher-than-expected cloud usage due to COVID-19 global epidemic constraints throughout 2020. Cloud migration is not only important, it is essential.

What Is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration describes the process of transferring digital infrastructure to the cloud. Transferring from on-premises data centers or legacy infrastructure to the cloud is commonly called cloud migration. Why cloud migration is important is because it moves local-host infrastructure, data, and services to the distributed cloud computing infrastructure. However, the success of this process depends on planning and doing an impact analysis of existing systems.

Some examples of using the cloud are Zoom for meetings or Google drive to store and share content. Companies that sign up with cloud service providers can oversee their entire infrastructure from remote locations. This eliminates the security risk, interruptions, and costs associated with maintaining on-premise hardware.

Necessity for Cloud Migration

Cloud computing is becoming a business necessity, regardless of the company’s size or the volume of work your company performs. It offers cost savings, flexibility, and dependable IT resources. Instead of worrying about the upkeep of your private data centers for information storage, your company can rely on the scalability of cloud storage to develop out storage as needed. Another reason why cloud migration is important is that it increases your adaptability, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership.

Benefits of Cloud Migration

Cost-Effectiveness:

Because of its inherent features such as scalability, trustworthiness, and a high-availability model for companies, cloud computing is highly sought out. Data migration to the cloud is cost-effective compared to on-premise costs such as hardware, software, support, outages, personnel, and evaluation.

One of the principal advantages for companies is focusing on their core business while outsourcing their primary infrastructure services to cloud service providers. On the other hand, cloud computing is more environmentally friendly than on-premises systems because it saves energy and provides green features that reduce the number of physical materials.

Business Continuity:

Cloud backup solutions, such as backup and restore in a business continuity plan, play an essential role in an assertive approach to achieving minimal downtime. Many businesses, particularly financial institutions, cannot afford outages to track and upgrade software and systems. The vast pool of IT resources enables organizations to enjoy the benefits of duplicated computer resources without regard to geography.

Increased Security:

Data is critical for any organization. Cloud vendors must consider the facts of critical information reliability, which is vital in today’s competitive business landscape. The commitment of a cloud vendor guarantees that their architecture is protected and that their clients’ applications and data are well shielded.

Cloud service providers offer a complete security protocol that uses encryption mechanisms to ensure data protection. Cloud providers’ complex data centers are built on layered security techniques, including data encryption, key management, sturdy access controls, and conformity with regular system audits.

Scalable IT Resources:

Most network operators will allow organizations to enhance their existing capacity to satisfy business needs or adjustments by providing scalable IT resources. Some clients may require a simple adjustment to support business expansion without making costly changes to their existing system infrastructure.

If an application is experiencing additional business, demand management can be easily managed via cloud resources, whereas increasing demand on resources via traditional computing environments is challenging.

Challenges of Migrating to the Cloud

According to The Cloud Adoption in 2020, a recent survey by technology and business training firm O’Reilly Media, the greatest challenge affecting cloud adopters isn’t technical; it’s people. This is because organizations must ensure they have the necessary technical skills to ensure long-term cloud success.

Choosing the correct cloud platform

Information management and data migration are critical research challenges. It is never as simple as simply moving data from legacy infrastructure to the cloud. Even after conducting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, selecting a suitable cloud provider is not easy.

Leading cloud market players such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure are constantly looking for ways to distinguish themselves from industry rivals clearly.

As a result, businesses must ask cloud providers if they have appropriate data migration techniques to move data while keeping vendor lock-in and functionality in mind (the ability of software to be transferred from one machine or system to another).

Adaptability and process issues

Change management is essential in these types of endeavors. Training employees on a new system and software console may incur extra costs. In addition, the attitude of employees toward versatility on a new system may be a challenge.

A technical fault does not always result from hardware or software failure; in fact, effective IT procedures and infrastructure operations are at the foundation of digitalization. There is a need to structure, implement, and oversee a plan that supports the transformation in data and process migration.

Continuing challenges to ensure cloud security:

Even though cloud market powerhouses have promoted their latest data security mechanism, the NSA mass surveillance scandal casts doubt. It causes a rethinking of storing all sensitive information data in the cloud.

This lack of trust affects all stakeholders involved. These include individual citizens, enterprises, and governments. Because cloud computing data is widely obtainable anywhere, a security breach caused by poor password security or cyber-attacks can jeopardize personal and commercial data.

The organizations that host their data locally have complete authority and control. They may feel exposed if they decide to relocate to the cloud because hackers frequently target large data centers.

Cost-Benefit Analysis:

A good number of organizations worldwide are in the process of integrating cloud technology as a critical component of their technology strategy. Nonetheless, despite overwhelming cloud traction, cost-benefit analysis techniques demonstrating the business impact of cloud adoption continue to be a significant risk factor.

It can be challenging to redevelop your existing IT infrastructure (server, network, and storage) to fulfill the criteria before migrating to the cloud. Cloud providers bill clients on a pay-as-you-go basis depending on the number of customers and transaction volumes. On the other hand, organizations are not eager to pay even more for system purchases, management, and increased bandwidth costs.

How to Deal With Data Migration Concerns

No matter your organization’s current IT ecosystem, effective planning is needed before embarking on a migration. Each cloud provider has its range of strategies that you can integrate into your cloud-migration plan.

The most important aspect of this process is remembering your clientele and end-users at each stage of the relocation. Following are some of the migrating strategies:

Rehosting:

This is also known as the “Lift and shift” strategy. A migration tactic for shifting a software or operating system from one environment to another – without revamping the app – is extremely good in a corporate environment.

Re-platforming:

It is the process of enhancing an app from its existing design with the advantage of “interoperability,” which allows developers to reuse current infrastructure.

Repurchasing:

Repurchasing is a technique for switching to a different good or service, such as changing from a self-managed email system to a web-based email-as-a-service.

Re-architecting:

This solution entails re-building an architecture design using PaaS’s cloud services and changing software applications, making it ideal for businesses that require additional features, magnitude, or performance.

Retiring:

A cost-cutting strategy in which organizations simply get rid of obsolete services and devices.

Cloud Service Models

Cloud computing has a few implementation concepts; organizations select the model depending on the size of their company or organization and the sophistication of their data. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are currently offering their services in any of the following models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, SECaaS, and DaaS.

Security as a service (SECaaS):

Security as a service (SECaaS) is a subscription-based service that allows businesses to incorporate their security apparatus with a cloud infrastructure. SECaaS is a data security model that does not necessitate on-premises equipment or additional tools. It is deduced from the “software as a service” model.

Cloud security service providers offer presumably significant benefits such as authentication, anti-virus, anti-malware, intrusion detection, penetration testing, and security event management, as well as auditing current security measures. SECaaS protects against one of the most enduring online security threats.

Data as a Service (DaaS):

DaaS is a centralized data storage location that allows users to easily move their information without requiring a high level of data migration competence. The notion of data as a service (DaaS) generates from software as a service (SaaS). The goal of DaaS is to provide data in real-time that is collected and stored on the cloud, irrespective of the client’s geographic region.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is suitable for large institutions that process millions of transactions and have much physical hardware. IaaS provides complete self-service access to and monitoring assets such as computers, networking, storage, and other services. It enables businesses to acquire resources on an as-needed basis. Top IaaS providers include Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and Google Compute Engine.

Platform as a Service (PaaS):

PaaS enables consumers to use the vendor’s cloud infrastructure to deploy web applications and other software applications by utilizing predetermined tools provided by cloud suppliers.

This model’s physical infrastructure is entirely the vendor’s obligation. The only thing the customer has to do is regulate and preserve software applications. PaaS services include AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Apache Stratos, Windows Azure, Google App Engine, and OpenShift.

Software as a Service (SaaS):

SaaS offers cloud infrastructure and cloud platforms to consumers who use software applications. The end-user accesses its applications via an internet browser or an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), eliminating the need to configure or sustain additional software. In this computer technology model, the vendor manages computer hardware, and software platforms like PaaS does. Google Docs, Google Gmail, and Microsoft Office 365 are examples of SaaS.

Choosing The Right Cloud Computing Partner

Cloud computing is a low-cost solution with many features that enable businesses to operate In an environmentally friendly manner. Easy disaster recovery assists users in maintaining business continuity without requiring a high level of technical expertise, while cloud providers enforce strict regulatory policies to ensure data integrity and consistency.

Scalable IT resources can assist businesses in expanding existing resources to meet their business needs. Choosing the right cloud provider is challenging regarding support, techniques, and approaches. The human factor is also a significant challenge, as it pertains to how people accept changes in adaptability. vFunction makes all this easy. We modernize Java applications and accelerate migration to the cloud. Our products help architects and developers automatically, efficiently, and rapidly assess and transform their monolithic apps into microservices. It’s a repeatable, automated factory model purpose-built for scalable cloud-native modernization. You can get in touch with us today to accelerate your journey to a cloud-native architecture.

The Why, When, and How of Moving from a Monolith to Microservices

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

Distributed architectures such as microservices offers several advantages over monolithic architectures. Microservices are self-contained code that can be deployed independently. Developers can focus on a few microservices rather than the entire codebase, reducing onboarding time. If a failure occurs in a microservice, it does not create a cascading failure that results in significant downtime.

Indeed, compared to older, legacy applications, today’s applications must be more scalable and cloud-ready. Response times need to be faster. Data needs to move quicker. Performance must be reliable. Meeting these demands becomes more challenging as monolithic legacy structures exceed their original design capacities.

Experts expect that the world will generate more data over the next three years than it has in the last three decades. This exponential growth in data processing requirements far exceeds those anticipated when systems were designed ten or twenty years ago. Legacy systems were never intended to run in the cloud or meet the 21st century’s performance requirements. Modernization is no longer an option. It has become an imperative.

The Importance of Making the Move from Monolith to Microservices: Who Wants to Be a Headline?

Recent high-profile failures have highlighted the risks of ignoring technical debt and maintaining legacy software instead of modernizing it. Southwest Airlines had a very public meltdown of its scheduling system. Twitter has experienced unplanned disruptions. While the exact source of the problem may be different, the root cause was old, brittle code that could not handle increased demand.

As is often the case, companies opt for faster delivery of new features rather than performance. They overlook the architectural issues that result from pushing a system beyond its design thresholds. Instead, they accumulate technical debt and operate on borrowed time.

Operating on Borrowed Time

The longer an organization waits to address their technical debt issues and start to incrementally modernize, the greater the potential impact on operations. What might have been an isolated change when first discovered soon becomes a problem with ripple effects that risk hours of downtime. Executives fearing the consequences of system upgrades or replacements wait until time has run out.

Paying the Price

Modernizing software in a big-bang approach is costly. All those hours that were not spent strengthening a system are suddenly required—and at a rate that is far higher than when the original solution was deployed. Most development or IT budgets are not large enough to cover the expense of modernizing an entire application at once. Without an incremental approach to remove legacy code, systems remain in place beyond their “best used by” date because no one wants to pay the price.

Maintaining the Status Quo

Even when modernization projects are authorized, many fail to achieve a successful outcome because the change that comes with the project is too complex for the existing corporate culture to implement. Modernization requires architectural observability and a continuous DevOps-like approach to software development and deployment to create a more efficient and agile environment.

Related: Application Modernization Trends, Goals, Challenges, and Resources

The approach requires a continuous modernization methodology, similar to continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) methods, to deliver software incrementally. It establishes a philosophy that addresses technical debt as part of normal operations. It also used automation tools to help expedite the process. These changes often require a significant reorientation of existing systems. Without a plan, continuous modernization projects are likely to fail.

Being the Lead Story

Avoiding the headlines means having a plan and knowing what technical issues have priority. Companies ensure they are not front-page news by understanding the value microservices principles have for software development and delivery. Most importantly, organizations must acknowledge that successful implementations require change.

Business Benefits of Making the Move

Aside from being the next headline, organizations need to understand the why, when, and how of modernization. Understanding the business benefits that come with a distributed architecture, such as microservices, can encourage decision-makers to move forward with modernization.

Scalability

When a module in a monolithic application needs additional resources, the entire application must scale. On-premise deployments may require massive investments in added hardware to scale the whole application.

But because microservices scale individually, IT only needs to allocate sufficient resources for a given microservice. Combining microservice architecture with cloud elasticity simplifies scaling. Cloud-based microservice architecture can respond automatically to fluctuations in demand.

When more resources are needed during Black Friday sales, for example, order-processing microservices can scale to meet demand. Two weeks later, when demand stabilizes, resources can be scaled back.

Resiliency

Resiliency looks at individual failures. Resilient systems discover and correct flaws before they turn into system failures that require redundant systems. They also identify and correct flaws that can lead to micro-outages. For example, downtime costs a small business $427 per minute—and that number can shoot up to $9,000 for larger organizations.

Suppose a business with 100 employees experiences two minutes of downtime. At $9,000 a minute, those two minutes cost $1,800,000 ($18,000×100). Because resilient systems have built-in recovery capabilities, they can isolate and contain flaws to minimize costly micro-outages.

Microservice architecture lends itself to resiliency, as each service is self-contained. If external resources are needed, they are accessed using APIs. If necessary, a microservice can be taken offline without impacting the rest of the application. Monolithic structures, on the other hand, operate as one large application, making error isolation difficult to achieve.

Agility

As end users demanded more functionality and faster delivery, developers have in parallel adopted an agile approach. They work to deliver improvements incrementally rather than accumulating fixes for a single delivery. Microservices work well in an agile environment. Changes can be deployed at the microservices level with minimal impact on the rest of the application.

If an immediate fix is required, only the flawed microservice needs to be touched. When it’s time to deploy, only part of the application is involved. Unlike monolithic applications, efforts are limited to a smaller percentage of the code base for faster delivery of software changes. With microservices, only the affected code is released, reducing the impact on operations should an update need to be rolled back.

Observability

End-to-end visibility in a microservices environment can be challenging. Until recently, tools were unavailable that consolidated system-wide monitoring into a single view of the software. Instead, operations had to comb through logs and traces to locate abnormalities.

A new generation of architectural observability tools designed to analyze and detect architectural drift now gives organizations the ability to manage and continuously remediate technical debt. Proactive problem-solving becomes possible. Performance concerns can be addressed before they impact operations, creating more reliable applications.

Cloud Computing

Organizations moving from monolith to microservices can take advantage of cloud computing. Leveraging the internet-based availability of computer services allows companies to reduce costs for servers, data storage, and networking. Rather than store and run enterprise workloads and apps on-premises, cloud computing enables IT departments, employees, and customers remote access to computer functions and data.

When to Begin Transitioning to a Microservices Architecture

Moving to a microservices architecture requires preparation. It requires a corporate commitment to fuel the culture change that is necessary and includes new Agile and DevOps processes. Organizations need to determine where their technical debt stands, how they plan to reduce it, and what they want to achieve. Skipping a clear technical debt analysis can lead to costly, confusing, and potentially devastating errors.

Analyze the Environment

Embracing microservices means creating a culture that maximizes its strengths. It requires building a DevOps approach to development and deployment. Development teams should understand how agile techniques work with microservices for faster and more reliable software. If these are not in place, a successful move is unlikely.

Management support is vital to transitioning to microservices. Not only do the dollars need to be authorized, but business objectives need to align. Executives must be willing to collaborate with IT to create a positive environment for change. If the business and technical environments are not established, then the transition process should begin there.

Define Objectives

IT departments can define what monolithic code should be moved to microservices while initial assessments are conducted. They can start with desired outcomes. What should modernization achieve? Better performance? Easier Scaling? Without a clearly-defined outcome, establishing priorities and creating a roadmap are challenging.

Microservice projects should also have business objectives. These objectives may include improved customer experience through faster payment processing or persisting data during an online application session. Whatever the objective, the technical outcomes need to support the business objectives. Establishing clear technical outcomes that align with business objectives is the second phase in moving from monolithic to microservices.

Measure Technical Debt

IT departments cannot quantify their modernization efforts until they measure their technical debt. They can use different calculation methods, such as tracking the number of new defects being reported or establishing metrics to assess code quality. Developers can monitor the amount of rework needed on production code. Increasing rework often indicates a growing technical debt.

Related: Modernizing Legacy Code: Refactor, Rearchitect or Rewrite

Whatever method is used, IT teams should look for automated tools that can simplify the process. Manual processes are labor-intensive and prone to error when subjective criteria are used. Automation provides a consistent evaluation method for quantifying technical debt.

Begin Transition

Once organizations have analyzed the environment, defined the objectives, and measured their technical debt, they can begin their transition to microservice architectures. They can determine which modernization strategies to use and decide how to assign priorities. They should also identify what tools and methods are needed.

7 Steps for Moving from Monolith to Microservices

As companies begin moving monolithic code to microservices, they need to evaluate the existing code to determine which components should be moved. Not every component is right for refactoring into a microservice. Sometimes, teams should consider other modernization strategies.

Identify Modernization Strategies

Every company has different priorities when it comes to modernization. Businesses have sales goals and departments have budgets. When faced with these constraints, organizations should consider the following strategies:

Replace. Purchasing new solutions is always an option when it comes to removing legacy code.
Retain. Some parts of existing code may be kept as is. Based on budget and delivery schedules, existing code with minimal technical debt may remain in use.
Rewrite. Starting over can be an appealing option, but rewriting an entire application is labor-intensive. It’s not just rewriting an application. It’s also re-architecting the existing software.
Retire. Removing software that is no longer needed helps simplify a system; however, the software should be carefully monitored to ensure no functionality is lost.
Refactor. Manual refactoring is too resource-intensive for most migrations. Automated tools are a cost-effective way to move monolithic applications to microservices.

Knowing which strategies to apply helps determine the level of effort for each modernization project. It helps set priorities to ensure that critical code is addressed first.

Set Priorities

Organizations must examine the impact of legacy code on operational risk and resource use when setting priorities. They should look at what constraints monolithic architectures are placing on innovation. When old code makes it difficult to maintain a competitive advantage, it threatens business growth.

With high levels of tech debt, organizations often lack the agility they need to use the latest technologies. Gaining valuable data-driven insights requires cloud computing capabilities. Monoliths are not cloud-native, which limits their ability to integrate seamlessly with the cloud.

Establishing operational-risk priorities should involve more than system failures. IT departments need to assess the security risks associated with older code. Hackers use known vulnerabilities found in older code to breach defenses.

Brittle systems make maintenance challenging. Developers must take extra care to ensure a fix in one module doesn’t compromise another. The added effort comes at a cost, as valuable resources are consumed fixing old code rather than creating new functionality.

As IT departments set priorities, they must balance the impact of the monolith on existing operations. They must also balance the resources required to effect that change. They may want to apply the 80/20 rule—focusing on the 20% of their applications that are creating 80% of the problems.

Adopt Architectural Observability Methods

Opting to move from monolith to microservice means adopting architectural observability methods that ensure migration success. Rather than following a waterfall approach, teams should use continuous modernization. They should rely on automated solutions that work with a continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) process for faster and more reliable deliveries. DevOps approaches can facilitate the move with monitoring and observability tools that help control technical debt and architectural drift.

Employ Continuous Modernization

Continuous modernization is an iterative process of delivering software changes. It complements microservices because changes can be deployed to an application based on the microservices being touched. Updates do not have to wait until the entire application is released. Customers receive new features faster with less risk of catastrophic failures.

Leverage Automation

Modernization platforms offer automated tools to help with continuous modernization. These platforms can analyze architectures to assess architectural drift. They can refactor applications into microservices and provide observability as the software is deployed.

Automated tools can exercise and analyze code much faster than testing staff. They can ensure consistency in testing, apply best practices, and operate 24/7. Automation goes hand-in-hand with continuous modernization. Without automation, the iterative process of software delivery will struggle to reach its full potential.

Streamline with DevOps

DevOps combines software development and operations into collaborative teams. The teams work together to deliver projects that meet business objectives. DevOps is concerned with maintaining a system that unifies and streamlines the CI/CD process through automation. A DevOps environment encourages a continuous modernization approach when moving from monolith to microservices.

DevOps teams monitor newly deployed systems to ensure operational integrity. They rely on metrics, logs, and traces; however, these tools lack the end-to-end visibility that organizations need. A crucial part of modernization is observability, particularly architectural observability.

Ensure Performance Observability

Monitoring tools provide the granularity needed to identify potential problems at the component level. They provide information on what a microservice does. What they don’t provide is the ability to observe system operations across a distributed architecture.

Observability tools, on the other hand, assess an application’s overall health. They look beyond the individual microservice to provide context when anomalies are found. As systems increase in complexity, observability becomes an essential part of modernization.

Make the Move from Monolith to Microservices

Moving from monolith to microservices requires both a change in architecture and a collaborative approach that has architecture, security, and operations all shifting left. With that shift comes a reassessment of a company’s culture. Unless the environment is conducive to continuous modernization, projects may fail to meet expectations. Understanding the benefits of a microservices architecture is essential to determining the modernization strategies to use. It can help establish priorities. However, a successful migration depends on adopting continuous modernization methods and tools. vFunction’s Continuous Modernization Platform is an automated solution that delivers essential architectural observability for assessing technical debt and architectural drift. Request a demo today to see how it can transform your modernization efforts.

The Case for Migrating Legacy Java Applications to the Cloud

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

With the increased popularity of cloud computing, you’ve likely considered cloud migration yourself. It’s easy to see why, as doing this offers several business benefits. However, when migrating legacy applications to the cloud, there are several things you need to consider, not least of which are the “why” and the “how.”

Simply put, you’ll need to consider whether there’s a business case for migrating to the cloud. And if so, you should plan how you’ll migrate your Java applications to the cloud.

Fortunately, the first consideration is relatively simple as, by now, the benefits of migrating to the cloud are clear. For instance, migrating your applications to the cloud:

· Increases efficiency, agility, and flexibility

· Gives you the ability to innovate faster

· Significantly reduces costs

· Allows you to scale your operations effortlessly

· Improves your business’s performance

Ultimately, when migrating legacy java applications to the cloud, you’ll be able to serve your customers better, get your products to market faster, and be able to generate more revenue.

The second consideration is a little more complex. This is because there are a variety of approaches you can follow, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. Moreover, when migrating your legacy applications to the cloud, you’ll need to follow the proper process to make your migration efforts a success and, ultimately, reach your business goals.

In this post, we’ll look at the above aspects in closer detail.

Related: Migrating Monolithic Applications to Microservices Architecture

What Are Your Options When Migrating Legacy Java Applications to the Cloud?

Before looking at the steps you’ll need to follow when migrating legacy Java applications to the cloud, it’s essential to consider various cloud migration strategies. In this way, you’ll get an idea of the pros and cons of each. Let’s delve into the reasons why some of the strategies might not be appropriate for you.

Rehost

With a rehosting strategy, you’ll move your existing infrastructure to the cloud. In other words, this strategy involves lifting your current applications from your current hosting environment and moving them to the cloud. The current hosting environment will typically be on-site infrastructure. It’s for this reason that this strategy is commonly referred to as “lift and shift.”

Rehosting is a common strategy for companies starting their cloud migration journey. It’s also quite common for companies looking for a strategy that will enable them to migrate faster and meet their business objectives quicker. This is simply because the rehosting process can be relatively simple and, therefore, doesn’t need a lot of expertise or technology.

It’s important to keep in mind, though, that, although rehosting can be simple to execute, it might not always be the best option. We’ll look at some of the reasons for this a bit later.

Replatform

When you use a re-platforming strategy, you’ll typically follow the same process as rehosting. In other words, you’ll lift your existing applications from your on-site infrastructure and migrate them to the cloud. The difference with replatforming is that, when making the shift, you’ll make certain cloud optimizations to your applications. For this reason, replatforming is often referred to as “lift-tinker-and-shift.”

Because of its similarities with rehosting, it has many of the same benefits. As such, it allows companies to execute their cloud migration strategies faster. Keep in mind, though, because of the optimizations you’ll be doing, this strategy needs more expertise. Also, like rehosting, it might not be the best solution for the reason we’ll look at it a bit later.

Refactor

With a refactoring strategy, you’ll re-architect your application for the cloud. This means you’ll be able to add new features more quickly, adapt to changing business requirements faster, and improve the application’s performance or scale the application depending on your specific needs and requirements.

In fact, this strategy is often driven by the need to implement new features or scale the application or increase performance, which would otherwise not have been possible with its current architecture or infrastructure.

A typical example of this strategy is where you would move legacy applications from a monolithic architecture to a micro service-oriented and serverless architecture. In turn, this would allow you to make your business processes more efficient and make your business more agile while maintaining the key business logic (and related intellectual property) currently embedded in your enterprise application.

Keep in mind, though, that besides rewriting the application, this strategy is often the most expensive cloud migration strategy in the short term. However, in the long run, and because it allows you to get all the benefits of migrating to the cloud, it could reduce your operational costs significantly and achieve the benefits of a rewrite at a fraction of the cost and time, while extending the current business value currently delivered by the application.

Rewrite

As the name suggests, a rewriting strategy involves discarding the code of your legacy application completely and rebuilding the application for the cloud. Understandably, this process could take a lot of time and effort not only in rebuilding the application but also in the planning. It could also be relatively expensive.

For this reason, this strategy should only be considered when you decide that your current application doesn’t meet your business needs.

Retire

The last strategy, retiring, involves considering every legacy application you use and the value it offers to your business. Those applications that don’t offer value are then retired or decommissioned. This will often require you to either stop using any of these services or find replacements for them in the cloud.

The problem with this approach is that it wouldn’t be possible if your existing legacy applications are integral to your business’s processes. In simple terms, you can’t retire an application you still need to use.

Why Rehosting and Replatforming Might Not Be the Best Idea

Considering the above, rehosting and replatforming might sound inviting because it allows you to migrate your legacy applications to the cloud quickly. Also, as mentioned above, the process is relatively simple, and you don’t need a lot of expertise, which means that it’s often also more affordable. However, as mentioned, it might not be the best solution.

As such, there are a few drawbacks to using these approaches when you plan on migrating to the cloud. For one, rehosting and replatforming strategies don’t deliver the full benefits of migrating to the cloud. This is simply because these strategies involve moving an application in its current state to the cloud. In other words, with these approaches, you’ll be moving an application that wasn’t designed to take full advantage of cloud technology to the cloud.

Another drawback is that it offers very little in the way of cost savings or improvements in agility. The main reasons for this are that, as mentioned above, legacy applications rely on outdated software and architectures. This causes compatibility issues and increases the cost of maintenance which, in turn, impedes your company’s ability to innovate and stay competitive in the market.

Another drawback of these approaches is that, because you shift your workloads to the cloud as is, you’ll still end up with operational silos, and you won’t be able to make your business operations more efficient.

For these reasons, a refactoring approach is preferred. If you reformat your legacy application to a microservices architecture, you’ll ensure stability, resilience, and increased reliability because you’re able to replace or update individual components of the application as your specific needs, requirements, or market conditions change.

Also, when you refactor your legacy Java applications into microservices, it allows you to take full advantage of the cloud. As such, you’ll improve your agility, you’ll speed up your research and development times, and you’ll get your products to market faster. Ultimately, you’ll be able to serve your customers better.

It goes further than this, though. With the tools available today, you’ll be able to automatically, efficiently, rapidly assess, and transform your legacy monolithic applications into microservices. This simplifies the process of migration and gives you the ability to modernize your legacy applications.

Why Stay with Java?

You’ve now seen that rehosting and replatforming aren’t the most appropriate solutions because they don’t deliver the full benefits of migrating to the cloud. We’ve also illustrated that refactoring might be the best solution. But now the next question is: Why stay with Java in the first place when migrating legacy Java applications to the cloud? After all, isn’t Java declining in popularity?

Sure, in some programming language index rankings, Java might have dropped a few spots. But, in RedMonk’s recent programming language popularity rankings, Java surged up the rankings to share the second spot with Python. This is simply because Java still continues to impress with its performance and its ability to adapt to a continuously evolving technology landscape.

In addition, Java has several other things going for it. For instance, Java:

Is easy to learn with a robust and predictable set of rules that govern code structure.
Has a rich set of APIs that allow it to be used for a variety of purposes, from web development to complex applications and cloud-native microservices.
Has an extensive tool ecosystem that makes software development with Java easier and simplifies development and deployment.
Is continuing to evolve to keep up with the changing technology landscape while still ensuring backward compatibility with earlier releases. This is evident through its continuous release cycle incorporating both long-term support (LTS) and non-LTS releases. It was also recently announced that the LTS release cadence will be reduced from three years to two years.

Considering the above, and its increased popularity, it’s clear that Java has secured its place in the software development world for some time to come.

Related: Succeed with an Application Modernization Roadmap

The Steps You’ll Need To Follow

Now that we’ve looked at the approach you’ll need to follow when migrating legacy Java applications to the cloud, we’ve, in a sense, looked at one part of the “how.” But it’s important to delve deeper, so we’ll look at the other part in more detail.

Simply put, when migrating to the cloud, a gradual approach is vital. In other words, you shouldn’t attempt a complete modernization across all the layers of your legacy applications at once.

So, for example, let’s assume that you have a legacy application that you want to modernize and migrate to the cloud. In this case, you’ll need to migrate the application’s front end, business logic, and database.

The best way to do this is by starting with the business logic. Here, you’ll be able to see what parts of the business logic performs what functions. You’ll then be able to decouple these from the monolithic application and break each into separate

services.

The tools mentioned earlier can help you assess your application’s readiness for modernization, which parts of your application to prioritize first, and identify the optimal business-domain microservices. During the process, they can also help you manage the modernization process, which allows you to accelerate cloud-native migrations.

You’ll then be able to build micro front ends for each service, and, once done, you can migrate the database for your application. Today’s technologies can help you simplify this process through database dependency discovery which discovers, detects, and reports which database tables are used by which services when decomposing a monolithic application.

Ultimately, in this way, you’ll take a structured and systematic approach to modernize your application.

Future-Proofing Your Business

Simply put, when migrating legacy Java applications to the cloud, you’ll get to enjoy a wealth of benefits that not only makes your business more efficient, but also allows you to serve your customers better, innovate faster, and generate more revenue.

The thing is, to get all these benefits, you’ll need to use the right approach and process to ensure that the modernization of your applications is a success. Hopefully, this post helped illustrate this process and steps in more detail.

When looking for a platform to make this process easier, vFunction is the perfect fit. Our platform for developers and architects is compatible with all major Java platforms. It intelligently and automatically transforms complex monolithic Java applications into microservices that allow you to take advantage of the benefits of migrating to the cloud.

To learn more about our platform and how it can help you, why not request a demo today.

Why Application Modernization Strategies Fail

Posted on January 19, 2022 by Jason English (Guest Author - Principal Analyst, Intellyx) - Uncategorized

We’re riveted by risk. Captivated by collapses and crashes. Humans are hardwired to be fascinated with failure.

This natural survival imperative can even influence our approach to the high-stakes game of application modernization, where learning or ignoring lessons from the project failures of others can determine an organization’s survival or failure.

What are some of the anti-patterns of application modernization worth watching, so that we can put failure in the rear-view mirror?

Inadequate requirements for microservices goals

A team can set out to do ‘just enough’ to modernize their application suite by simply lifting-and-shifting it from on-premises or co-located servers to cloud infrastructure – and thereby assure the real goal of modernization is never met.

In my previous post “Flip the Script on Lift-and-Shift Modernization, with Refactoring” we discussed how the brute-force migration of code and data that were never intended for a future of elastic capacity and microservices agility would fail to deliver the expected benefits of cloud modernization every time.

While the path of least resistance is usually the most desirable one, we need to make sure we don’t set the bar for success too low – for instance, only making cosmetic changes to a user interface. If the underlying application code isn’t appropriately refactored to be microservices-ready for cloud autoscaling goodness, chances are you aren’t really modernizing at all.

Code-level observability of running functional threads within the ‘as-is’ application can show where call dependencies, memory and CPU usage, synchronization and data states are intertwined, so that resolving and refactoring these complexities can untangle knots that accelerate the modernization push.

Misguided business value expectations

A CTO friend of mine once referred to a large enterprise’s IT program management team as “huffing their own ROI fumes” when it came to evaluating technology initiatives.

There is a well-known ROI calculus to investment decisions for projects like better customer tracking, support call center systems, and logistics optimizers. Cost-of-ownership can be correlated to the improvement of rather discrete metrics such as transactions per second, productivity, or throughput.

Many leadership teams become addicted to value calculations that favor short-term cost cuts and transactional gains over longer-term results. Ideally, an application modernization initiative should transform the entire digital backbone necessary to support and grow the organization far into the future. So how can accountants derive value from something so broad?

On the bottom line, teams can measure and drive down labor and service costs incurred through constantly maintaining software estates, reducing issue resolution costs, SLA or regulatory penalties, labor spent managing disruptive upgrades, and paying capex to expand and reserve ever-increasing infrastructure to meet usage demands.

Replacing ongoing costs may sometimes free up enough cap room for smaller projects to proceed, but cost-based valuation scenarios will limit the scope of available improvements to whatever is most expedient.

Most companies still value top-line revenue growth over cost-cutting, especially if the curve grows at a faster rate than costs.

The ideal approach here would be to improve the feedback loop and better hone in on the most important functional needs of customers using the applications, whether they are internal or external. Modernization and refactoring efforts and tooling can be prioritized for quick wins on the revenue and productivity side that also contribute to faster release cycles and better long-term results.

Too many dependencies and technical debt

The prioritization challenges continue, especially in facing down the looming demon of technical debt, which robs the business of agility and throws sand in the gears of any application modernization effort.

Technically, the day a piece of code is promoted to production, it becomes legacy code. Fast forward 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and you find that the technology stacks the code was written for encountered generational shifts. Furthermore, most of the team members that specified infrastructure and wrote software will have already moved on.

Rip-and-replace is seldom a good option for dealing with such dependencies due to ongoing business activity. Before hitting the reset button and rewriting applications from scratch, it is incumbent upon the IT team to prove that they can generate quick wins by decoupling the software suite at a more granular level and service-enabling one function at a time.

Extracting valuable intellectual property–in the form of business logic and processes from existing systems–also allows the business to realize continued value from that IP after modernization.

Once you scratch the surface on any complex critical application, there are far too many moving parts for humans to perceive and address at once. Correlating the threads of an existing Java Struts application with its big-iron backend to say, an API-driven Spring Boot or Kubernetes architecture that talks to a cloud data lake requires factory-level automation.

The vFunction Application Transformation Engine (or, vAXE) offers an interesting AI-driven approach to auto-discovering all of the inputs and through-lines of functional threads within existing Java applications, dynamically detecting key business domains, and using those discoveries to decompose the monolith into microservices along those domains. Progress inputs from discovery, refactoring and scaling activities are fed into a factory-management style platform, with a dashboard to allow IT to prioritize and track modernization progress.

Scar tissue from previous failures

Failure is the only intergenerational constant in software development and integration. When two-thirds of application development and integration projects have historically failed to meet timeline or budgetary goals, why try harder?

Initiating an application modernization initiative without strong automated tooling in place inevitably leads to burnout and people leaving the project or company. Employees bear the scars of past modernization trials, which probably involved lots of screen-scraping of data, manual testing, from-scratch coding and sorting through reams of log data.

More importantly, all of the appropriate stakeholders of modernization within the organization and its partners should be aligned around a common source of truth around progressive delivery, and setting a regular cadence of quicker functional wins that deliver incremental value.

Rather than setting a big-bang replatforming requirement that may seem too daunting to reach, many companies instead opt for service level objectives (or SLOs) that improve fidelity and performance over time. This approach allows teams to regain a sense of shared trust, and the satisfaction of knowing that their individual efforts are contributing value to the business, and its end customers.

The Intellyx Take

The counterintuitive secret of application modernization success?

Even the best performing teams will inevitably encounter some failures on their way to a future state of a modern, scalable and agile application estate. A team that never experiences failures at all – no breakdowns in communication, no project stoppages, no bugs in production – is probably too risk-averse to actually try and accomplish anything. But teams that use a data-driven and automated strategy for application modernization will be in a better position to understand and manage the risk and iterate much more intelligently and quickly.

And that brings us full circle. In the application modernization game, it’s okay to have ambitious long-term goals and a commitment to excellence–but to win, you still have to start somewhere. The modernization journey of a thousand apps starts with just one service.

©2022 Intellyx LLC. Intellyx retains editorial control over the content of this document. At the time of writing, vFunction is an Intellyx customer. Image source: John Morgan, flickr open source.

The Best Java Monolith Migration Tools

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

As organizations scale to meet the growing tsunami of data and the sudden rise of unexpected business challenges, companies are struggling to manage and maintain the applications that run their business. When unprepared, exponential data growth can tax a company’s legacy monolith Java systems and their IT departments.

To solve that challenge, massive data-driven companies such as Amazon, Uber and Netflix have moved their data from a single unit monolith architecture to microservice cloud architecture. In this article, we will examine the Java migration tools needed to decouple bulky and unscalable monoliths.

What are Java migration tools?

Java migration tools help organizations upgrade from a monolithic to a microservices system. They assist in the re-architecture and migration of Java applications and the databases, files, operating systems, code, websites, networks, data centers and virtual servers that make up the application.

What is a monolithic architecture?

Monolithic architecture is a single-tiered software application that integrates several components into a single program and onto a single platform, using the same backend codebase.

In many cases, the monolithic structure is built on a Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) platform such as WebLogic, WebSphere, or JBoss or often a Spring Framework. Usually, a Java monolith application has a layered design. There are separate units for data access, application logic and the user interface.

A monolith architecture starts small but as the business and its data grows, it stops suiting the business’s needs.

● Because the applications are tightly coupled, the individual parts can’t be independently scaled

● The tight coupling and hidden dependencies make the code difficult to maintain

● Testing becomes complicated

In a recent survey in TechRepublic Premium, they asked 477 professionals about their plans to transform their monolith systems into more manageable microservice architectures. According to the study, the vast majority (96 percent) of respondents knew at least something about microservices. A still sizable majority (73 percent) have already started integrating microservices into their application development processes. Of those who hadn’t started, 63 percent are toying with the idea.

Further, respondents reported that the top benefits to cloud microservice architecture are:

● Faster deployment of services (69 percent of respondents)

● Flexibility to respond to changing conditions (61 percent of respondents)

● The ability to quickie scale up new features into large applications (56 percent of respondents)

● Increased standardization of services (42 percent of respondents)

● Reduced technical debt (33 percent of respondents)

Among those who had begun the transformation, the best-ranked application development tools were REST, Agile, Web APIs, DevOps, or a combination. Containers and cloud services were also popular among respondents. However, only 1 percent used COBRA.

Related: Migrating Monolithic Applications to Microservices Architecture

The advantages to monolithic architecture

Despite the fact that so many companies are moving away from monolithic architectures, there are advantages to a single application. It is easy to develop, easy to test and easy to deploy. In addition, horizontal scaling is relatively simple. Operators simply run multiple copies behind a load balancer.

The disadvantages of monolithic architecture

Monolith architecture presents a number of challenges, including difficulty in scaling, difficulty in maintaining, performance issues, lack of reliability, less reusability, cost, and unnecessary complexity. Since everything is in a single application, there is a tight coupling between components.

A large code base makes it difficult for developers and quality assurance teams to understand the code and business knowledge. It does not follow Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) and there are more restart and deployment times.

What are microservices?

Before you lift the hood of a car, you see a single unit. Underneath the hood of a car, however, is a complex set of parts that propels it forward or backward, stops it on command and monitors how each part of the car is functioning.

A microservices architecture is similar to a car in that while to front-end users, it may seem like a single unit, underneath the metaphorical hood is a suite of modular services. Each of them uses a simple to use and well-defined interface to support a single business goal while communicating with other services.

Each service in a microservice system has its own database that is best suited to its needs and ensures loose coupling. For example, an ecommerce microservice system might have separate databases for tracking online browsing, taking and processing orders, checking inventory, managing the user cart, authorizing payments and shipping.

The advantages of microservice architecture

Going back to the car analogy, imagine if, instead of separate parts, everything under the hood wasn’t just interconnected. Imagine that each part was permanently affixed to each adjacent part. In that scenario, if a single belt breaks a mechanic has to change out the engine, transmission and entire drive train.

While that analogy might be overly simplistic, it does illustrate some of the benefits of microservice architecture. As with a car, separate yet interconnected services gives organizations the flexibility to individually test, deploy, maintain and scale services without affecting the rest of the application or disrupting functionality as a whole.

Java migration tools offer a convenient pluggable architectural style for cost-effective and fast upgrades.

The disadvantages of microservice architecture

Microservice architectures contain several user interfaces, each potentially programmed with its own language and each with its own set of logs. As such, communication can be a challenge, as can finding the sources of bugs and coding errors.

Testing a single unit in a microservice system is much easier than testing a huge monolithic system, but integration testing is not. Each of the components of a microservice system is distributed, which means that developers can’t test their system from individual components.

Because an architecture contains multiple microservices, each with its own API, interface control becomes critical.

How to assess your current infrastructure for a microservices cloud migration

Before committing to migrating from a monolithic Java application to microservices cloud applications, it’s imperative that a company conducts a thorough assessment of their current situation, which includes:

● Determining future needs and goals

● Mapping transaction flow through the current infrastructure

● Assessing response time impact risks

● Assessing security and infrastructure requirements

● Evaluating current resources

● Classifying data

● Determining compliance and migration requirements

● Assessing operational readiness

● Determining timeline and budget

Related: How to Conduct an Application Assessment for Cloud Migration

Cloud migration challenges

According to a recent report, nearly two out of three companies say that they’re still managing security via manual processes despite the fact that about one in every three companies admit that most misconfigurations and errors were caused by humans.

Lack of automation isn’t just a security risk. Cloud transformations are resource-heavy. One of the reasons companies wish to migrate to the cloud is to free-up resources, so further charging in-house resources with conducting a cloud assessment and managing and enacting a cloud migration is not only counterintuitive, it’s costly and resource-prohibitive.

Single pane of glass platforms conduct assessments and manage and track the entire cloud migration across an enterprise estate as well as integrate information from numerous sources. The single pane of glass appears as a single display, such as a dashboard.

The Seven “R”s of cloud migration

In 2010, Gartner wrote about the five ways to migrate to the cloud. At the time, those included: rehost, refactor, revise, rebuild and retire. In the years since, most experts add replatform and rewrite to the list.

● Rehost (lift and shift) – Rehosting is fairly intuitive and relatively simple. During a migration, applications and servers are “lifted” from their current hosting environment and shifted to the cloud or rehosting infrastructure.

● Replatform – Replatforming is a modified lift and shift. During a replatform, some modifications are made to the application during the migration. Replatforming does require some programming.

● Repurchase – Repurchasing, or “drop and shop” means to drop all or part of the existing architecture and moving to new systems altogether.

● Refactor – Manual refactoring is resource intensive in that it requires re-architecting one or more services or applications by hand, unless more modern automated refactoring tools are used.

● Retain – If a company chooses to implement a hybrid approach to cloud migration, they may retain the parts of their current architecture that works for them.

● Rewrite – Some companies rewrite, rebuild or re-architect a monolithic application or system to be cloud-ready. Rewriting takes a considerable programming team.

● Retire – Some companies choose a retire strategy, which means identifying the services and assets that no longer benefit the organization. Retiring can be complicated and labor-intensive since teams will need to supervise to ensure nothing goes wrong before shutting those applications down.

Java migration tools

AWS Migration Services

For companies that find investing in entire new hardware and software infrastructure cost-prohibitive, AWS (Amazon Web Services) offers a cloud computing platform that mixes infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS),

Azure Migration Tools

Azure Migration Tools, a Microsoft product, offers a centralized hub where companies can track and execute a cloud migration to ensure that the migration is as seamless as possible and that there are no interruptions. One downside is that the hub is only available to companies that choose on-premises migrations.

Carbonite Migrate

Carbonite Migrate has a repeatable and structured process that lets users innovate. The tool reduces downtime and prevents data loss. Users have remote access and can migrate across environments, between physical, virtual and cloud-based applications.

Corent SurPaas

Corent SurPass promises to balance workloads by optimizing the migration process. It allows for quick transformation into SaaS applications.

Google Migration Services

Google Migration Services promises to eliminate data loss and improve agility during the migration. Its features include built-in validation testing, rollbacks to secure the data and live streaming during the migration and while running workloads.

Micro Focus PlateSpin Migration Factory

Micro Focus PlateSpin Migration Factory performs fast server migrations as it reduces data loss and errors. There is a built-in testing tool for each migration cycle. It is an excellent all-around tool in that it includes automated testing, executing, planning and assessment.

Turbonomic

Using artificial intelligence, Turbonomic optimizes and monitors workloads. Because it uses AI, it excels at complex hybrid cloud migrations. In addition, there are visual components that enable users to see what’s happening with their data.

CloudHealth Technologies

CloudHealth Technologies aligns business operations with infrastructure by using specialized reporting and analysis tools. Migration teams can set new policies for proper configuration.

vFunction

vFunction accelerates Java migration projects by automating the refactoring of the Java monolith into microservices, saving years of rewriting and manual re-architecting time and money.

Cloudscape

Cloudscape uses infrastructure lifecycle reporting to simplify manual modeling. The tools demonstrate how data is scattered throughout the company architecture so migration teams can choose the best application and strategy,

ScienceLogic

Science Logic allows remote access where they can manage every aspect of the database migration. It lets users analyze even large databases.

Oracle Cloud

Oracle Cloud delivers IaaS, PaaS and SaaS services. It leverages built-in security and improved automation to mitigate threats.

Red Hat Openshift

Red Hat Openshift is a cloud-based PaaP that allows teams to build, test, deploy and run their own applications. Users can customize the functionality with any language and they can choose whether to manually scale or allow the system to autoscale.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an Open Source platform that, used on a cloud-based server, offers speed, simplicity and portability. It lets users deploy, scale and manage containerized applications. It’s also the fastest-growing project in the history of Open Source software.

Transformations Can Be Easier

vFunction is the first and only platform for developers and architects that intelligently and automatically transforms complex monolithic Java applications into microservices. Designed to eliminate the time, risk, and cost constraints of manually modernizing business applications, vFunction delivers a scalable, repeatable factory model purpose-built for cloud-native modernization.

vFunction can help speed up software companies in their journey to become faster, more productive, and truly digitally transformed. If you want to see exactly how vFunction can speed up your application’s journey to being a modern, high-performant, scalable, true cloud-native, request a demo.

vFunction is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. Leading companies around the world are using vFunction to accelerate the journey to cloud-native architecture thereby gaining a competitive edge.

Go-to Guide to Refactoring a Monolith to Microservices

Posted on January 12, 2022 by Bob Quillin - Uncategorized

The transition from a monolith to microservices has become popular in the digital world because of its multiple benefits, including business agility, flexibility, and elimination of barriers associated with monolithic applications. You can enjoy these benefits by refactoring a monolith application to microservices.

And here, we explore the benefits of refactoring a monolith to microservices and the best practices of doing so.

Refactoring a Monolith to Microservices: Understanding the terms

With more and more companies moving to a cloud-first architecture, it is essential to understand the difference between monolithic applications and microservices. The two are styles of program architecture.

An enterprise application has three parts: the database, a client application, and a server application. On the server application, there is a web interface, data layer, and business logic layer. This can be designed as a single monolithic block or as small independent pieces known as microservices.

A monolith application has all its components located in one program. It means that the web interface, data layer, and business logic layer are built in a single unit of application such as WAR or JAR. Most legacy applications are established as monoliths, and converting them to microservices is beneficial.

Related: Succeed with an Application Modernization Roadmap

Microservices architecture consists of small, autonomous programs that run independently and communicate via API (Application Programming Interface). One of the core benefits of microservices is that the individual components work differently and achieve their goals faster. The application can combine web analytics with e-commerce or AI services from different providers to work together and support different business procedures.

Benefits of Microservices in Detail

Microservices architecture has multiple other perks, including agility, scalability, upgradability, velocity, cost, and more. Let us discuss the advantages in detail.

Agility

The design of a microservice allows it to be disconnected from the rest of the system or program. As such, any adjustments made to it will not affect the functionality of the system.

As a developer, you need not worry about complex integrations, which means making changes is easier, and there’s no need for a long testing time. So, migrating monolithic applications to microservice architecture is most often the best option as it enhances agility.

Great Focus on Value and Capabilities

Microservices users are not required to understand how it functions, the programming language it employs, or its internal logic. They just need to learn how to access and call its API method and know the data it returns. In essence, microservices can be reused across applications when they are well-designed.

Flexibility

Microservices architecture is self-contained. Designers are free to use frameworks, programming languages, databases, and other tools of their choice. If they wish, users can update to newer versions or switch between different languages or tools. As long as the exposed APIs aren’t modified, no one else is affected.

Automation

When comparing monolithic to microservices apps, the importance of automation cannot be understated. Microservices design allows for the automation of various essential operations that would otherwise be manual and tedious, such as building, integration, testing, and continuous deployment. As a result, employee productivity and satisfaction increase.

Cost-Effective

A nicely designed microservice is small enough to be developed, tested, and released by a single team. With the codebase being smaller, understanding it is easier, which maximizes team productivity. Additionally, since the business logic and data storage isn’t used to connect microservices, dependencies are reduced to a minimum. All of this contributes to improved team communication and lower management costs.

Easy Upgrading

One of the most significant differences between monolithic apps and microservices is upgradability. It’s crucial in today’s fast-paced market. Since it is possible to deploy a microservice independently, it’s easier to repair errors and add new features.

A single service can be deployed without having to reinstall the entire program. It is possible to roll back the erring service if problems are discovered during deployment. This is more convenient than deleting the entire application.

Increased Velocity

All of the advantages above lead to teams concentrating on rapidly producing and delivering value, resulting in a velocity increase. Organizations can therefore adapt quickly to shifting business and technological demands.

Related: Advantages of Microservices in Java

Why Refactoring A Monolith To Microservices Is The Best Migration Approach

In recent years, the popularity of cloud applications has led to a critical question: Which is the best approach to ensure long-term success? Refactoring has historically been rated as the most intensive migration approach, but new automated tools are changing that calculus. It is a disciplined process where developers review, rearchitect and re-code components of applications before migrating to the cloud.

This approach is adopted to fully take advantage of native cloud features and the flexibility they offer. Despite the resource commitment and the upfront cost, refactoring serves as the ideal way of producing the best return on investment in the long run. In addition, it offers a continuous cloud innovation model, with improvements in operations, functionality, resilience, security, and responsiveness.

While refactoring a monolith to microservices, instead of the traditional time-consuming manual approach, we advocate that you use modern automation tools and also avoid refactoring all of your code at once while modernizing your application. Instead, we recommend refactoring the monolithic program in stages.

Why Not Just Use The Lift-And-Shift Approach To Get To Cloud?

Over the last decade, cloud experts and analysts have developed a conventional wisdom that it is desirable to move applications to cloud computing infrastructure. Besides, this is very handy in the modernization effort.

Think of successful companies like Uber and Netflix, which were established in the cloud. Emulating them will lead to fast-growing and more productive companies. Moving to the cloud means re-platforming applications. This involves lifting databases and VMs from conventional servers to pay-as-you-go models with an IaaS provider.

The lift-and-shift approach is also in the cloud, and it provides excellent capabilities like maintenance of parallel instances or reserving excess capacity for recovery or failover purposes. However, because of the hefty nature of monolith applications, you might rack up shockingly large storage and compute costs while still having difficulty adding new functionality.

This approach is not able to achieve efficient scaling or modern cloud-native agility. Therefore, refactoring a monolith to microservices remains the best method for a company aiming at achieving long-term success.

Migrating Monolithic Apps to Microservices: Best Practices

When refactoring a monolith to microservices, you can do it manually or automatically. Below are guidelines to help you modernize your app, whether you go the manual way or use automated tools.

Find a Decoupled, Basic Functionality

Begin with functionality already separated from the monolith which doesn’t need changes to client-facing apps or the use of a data store. This should be converted into a microservice. It assists the team in upskilling and establishing the minimalistic DevOps architecture required in building and deploying the microservice.

Eliminate the Microservices Dependency on Monoliths

The dependence of freshly formed microservices on monoliths should be decreased or eliminated. New dependencies between the monolith and the microservices are established during the decomposition process. This is great because it does not affect the speed with which new microservices are built. The most challenging element of refactoring is generally identifying and eliminating dependencies.

We also recommend extracting modules with requirements that differ from the rest of the monolith. For instance, a module containing an in-memory database can be converted into a service and deployed on servers with better memory. Making the application considerably easier to scale by turning modules with specific resource requirements into services is possible.

Check out and Split the Sticky Functionality

Identify any form of sticky functionality in the monolith that too many monolith functions rely on unnecessarily. This will make removing additional independent microservices from the monolithic app difficult. To move ahead, flip the script on lift-and-shift modernization with refactoring. It can be a time-consuming and frustrating task, but the results are satisfying.

Use Vertical Decoupling

Usually, many decoupling attempts begin by separating user-facing functions to permit independent UI updates. Because of this technique, monolithic data storage becomes a velocity limiting issue.

Instead, the functionality should be split into vertical “pieces,” with each piece containing business logic, UI, and data storage capabilities. The most difficult thing to unravel is knowing what business logic is dependent on which database tables. You must carefully separate the logic, capability data, and user-facing elements and direct them directly to the new service to successfully decouple capabilities from a monolithic app.

Prioritize Decoupling the Most Used and Changed Functionality

The main purpose of migrating microservices to the cloud is to speed up updates to monolithic features. To do so, the developers must first determine the most often modified functionality. The quickest and most cost-effective solution is to move this functionality to microservices. Focus on refactoring the business domain with the best business value.

Start with Macro, then go Micro

The new microservices should not be too small, at least at first, since this generates a complex and difficult-to-debug system. The recommended strategy is to start with fewer services, each with more capability, and then break them up afterward.

Use Evolutionary Steps to Migrate

Refactoring a monolith to microservices should be done in small, atomic stages. The atomic steps involve the creation of new services, routing of clients to the new services. It also involves retiring the code within the monolith that was previously delivering this functionality. This ensures that the developing team gets closer to the ideal design with each atomic step.

Note that the migrating app should work with all monolithic applications. The scale, agility, velocity upgradability, and affordability are some of the advantages the process should provide. These factors should not be negatively impacted at any point, and the migration should be completed quickly, intelligently, and automatically.

Simplifying the Migration Process

When examining refactoring a monolith to microservices, it’s evident that manual transformation is time-consuming, error-prone, labor-intensive, and requires significant architecture knowledge. These skills are lacking in the majority of companies.

How about migrating automatically? Would it not be great if you could just drop a monolith application into a software modernization platform? This would have all of the time-consuming and complicated stages above accelerated and simplified. All the above best practices should be followed but in an intelligent, automated, and repeatable way.

Is there an Ideal Platform for Refactoring a Monolith to Microservices?

Refactoring an operational app into microservices has multiple benefits, as explored above. However, refactoring a monolithic to microservice isn’t a walk in the park. The developers must look for the best platform that can help in performing the task smoothly.

Are you wondering whether there is an ideal platform for this migration? Many platforms exist in the market, and you may get confused about the best product to use. If you’re in this situation, vFunction can help. It’s the first and only platform that allows developers to effectively and automatically refactor a monolith to microservices. It also restores the engineering velocity and optimizes the benefits of the cloud.

Some of the benefits include the elimination of cost constraints, risks, and time associated with manually modernizing your applications. Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in Israel, vFunction is led by a team experienced who have been in the IT industry for a long time.

Do you want to learn more about vFunction? If yes, please request a demo to explore how vFunction helps your application become a modern and truly cloud-native application while improving its performance, scalability.

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