Accelerate Application modernization using Eviden AppMod Toolkit powered by Amazon Bedrock

By Nishant Sahay, Practice Head Cloud Native App Dev – Eviden
By Vivek Jindgar, Vice President & Global Head, Cloud Modernization Practice – Eviden
By Ramesh Ranganathan, Sr. Partner Solutions Architect – AWS
By Prasanta Roy, Sr. Manager, Solutions Architecture – AWS

Industry Trends & Business Challenge

EVIDEN

Customers migrate their applications from on-premises or other hyper-scalers to AWS for various reasons including data centre exit, cost improvement, licence optimisation, improving performance, reliability, scalability or elevating security posture. They often use lift and shift approach as the first step in their cloud journey rather than modernising the applications. Many lift-and-shift cloud migrations do not produce the desired business outcomes, according to industry research. Legacy applications that are migrated lack agility to meet changing business needs. Additionally, due to a lack of subject matter experts with legacy framework and application knowledge, it can be challenging for customers to realize true agility and performance gains from these legacy applications. In summary, typical modernisation challenges that customers face includes the following:

• Applications developed using a variety of technologies and patterns that were once considered modern, but now obscure the business logic.
• Missing or outdated documentation.
• Significant effort, time, and cost required to assess, modernize, and test changes.
• Uncertainty regarding the time required for transformation and the viablility of the business case.

This also deters customers from directly modernising applications in the cloud, pushing them towards a two-step approach migration (lift & shift) and then modernisation (like re-platforming or monolithic to microservices).

To address these challenges, Eviden spotted an opportunity to transform legacy workload utilising Eviden’s expertise in modernisation and in AWS generative AI services. Partnering with AWS, Eviden developed Application Modernisation Toolkit (Eviden AppMod Toolkit) using Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Q Developer ). This generative AI powered application modernization toolkit is the foundation of next Gen modernisation offering, helping our customers tackle the challenges of using a plethora of technologies within the enterprise and the time constraint to transform existing applications.

The objective of this blog is to provide an overview of Eviden AppMod Toolkit, its features, and explain how it addresses the above-mentioned challenges. Eviden is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner with 17 AWS Competencies, including Managed Service Provider (MSP).

Eviden Solution – AppMod Toolkit on AWS

The Eviden AppMod Toolkit revolutionizes the way legacy applications are analyzed and modernized. AppMod Toolkit leverages a combination of Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Q, and it provides a GenAI-powered automated workflow, spanning across the lifecycle of any application transformation program viz:

• Application assessment
• Documentation generation
• Code upgrading
• Refactoring
• Complete application transformation

Figure 1: Differentiators

Eviden AppMod ToolKit offers an ever-evolving, unique set of capabilities, reports, and a user interface that differentiates it from competition. While there are many solutions in the market that meet requirements of a particular phase like assessment, cloud suitability or code modernization, Eviden’s Toolkit is a single solution spanning across all application modernization phases.

The following highlights truly sets AppMod Toolkit apart in the landscape of modernization:

• Multiple Stack support: It can handle Java, .NET, Clojure, Pro*C, Grails, Oracle, and many more. This versatility means we can modernize a wide array of legacy systems, regardless of the technology stack they’re built on.
• Flexible Control: Toolkit can be tailored to meet specific customer deliverables as every modernization project is unique, with its own set of challenges and requirements.
• OneClick Installation: Prebuilt scripts with AWS Cloud Formation for deployment, making the setup process as smooth and effortless as possible
• Deployment Models: Toolkit can be deployed either on the customer’s own infrastructure or on Eviden’s dedicated Landing Zone thus providing freedom to choose the deployment strategy that best fits customer’s security and operational requirements.
• Secure & compliant: Developed with the active support of AWS solution architect teams, the AppMod toolkit has cleared the AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR) ensuring adherence to AWS technical best practices applicable for this solution. This toolkit is designed with security at its core, mitigating risks associated with cloud migration and transformation programs.

Solution Overview

AppMod Toolkit on AWS is a web-based, three-tier application. It offers an interactive Angular frontend hosted on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), compute using AWS Lambda and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) , and data storage using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for metadata and Amazon S3 for reports storage. Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Q Developer is used to analyze the code and as an aid in transformations.

The solution is designed with a comprehensive, three-phase process: Information extraction, detailed analysis, and Transform as depicted in Figure 2 below. Information Extraction phase captures key insights and embedding from the code, detailed analysis phase generates reports based on the information extracted and transformation phase where the application code is either modernized, translated or upgraded.

Figure 2: High Level Solution Architecture

AppMod ToolKit aims to make the process of modernizing legacy applications more efficient, cost-effective, and secure, while reducing dependency on functional and technical subject matter experts. It has main components Pryzm and CodeTx.

AppMod Toolkit – Pryzm

The AppMod Toolkit offers a suite of curated dashboards designed to provide insightful information to application stakeholders, thus easing the complexity of design and management of such a program. These dashboards and reports include:

• Application Overview Dashboard: Comprehensive overview of an application, including batch details, web services, and code review summaries.
• Call Graph Dashboard: Helps architects identify technical debt or identify change-impact by showcasing component coupling and dependencies.
• Component Details Dashboard: Dive deep into the details of each component, including metadata, dependencies, and code quality metrics.
• Cloud Readiness Assessment Dashboard: Identify components that require changes to make them either cloud-ready or to modernize them, along with the complexity involved.
• QnA Chat Interface: Utilize natural language to gain deeper insights into the codebase, allowing our developers and analysts to ask questions and receive relevant information

Few sample dashboards generated by AppMod toolkit are provided below:

The Application overview dashboard shown below provides the details of the application and the different components that comprise the application.

Figure 3: Application Overview

The Cloud Readiness Report generated in the AppMod toolkit for the analyzed application provides detailed information on the effort required to modernize the application under consideration, as well as the rationale behind it.

Figure 4: Cloud Readiness Report

AppMod Toolkit – CodeTx

The AppMod Toolkit’s CodeTx feature offers a range of code transformation capabilities to modernize applications:

• Language Conversion: Easily convert codebase in a variety of programming language, such as Clojure, Uniface to Java or VB6 to C# etc This list continues to evolve
• Stack Migration: Seamlessly migrate applications to a new technology stack, for example, from Struts to Spring Boot or .NET Framework to .NET Core.
• Version Upgrade: Update application to the latest versions of programming language and frameworks, including Java 8 to Java 11/17/21 or Spring 3 to Spring 5.
• Cloud Readiness: Prepare codebase for cloud deployment by automatically applying necessary configurations and annotations.

Customer Story: Automobile Finance Services

Objective:

Customer wanted to modernize the 200+ applications. They wanted to execute a pilot assessment for 4 applications as part of the move to cloud strategy. As part of the pilot they wanted to do a detailed assessment of the in-scope apps to determine the right cloud transformation path (migration strategy) and cloud disposition.

Challenges:

• Lack of SMEs who understand the technical and functional details
• Limited documentation
• Outdated programming languages and frameworks like Java 1.8, JSP and Struts.
• Time constraint of 7 weeks for detailed assessment including target architecture & implementation plan
• Customer requirements led us to 20+ deliverables per application including reports, documentation & target architecture
• Evolving needs of customer like request for DB Schema Assessment as part of the deliverables

Eviden’s Solution:

Eviden used “Pryzm” tool to assess application complexity, determine migration strategies, and propose AWS cloud architectures.

• Application code analysis
• Customized reports per application
• Detailed insights on languages, dependencies, and technical debt
• AWS deployment architecture mapping
• Migration timeline and cost estimates

Business Impact:

• Around 40% cost reduction with the use of the toolkit
• Ability to tailor deliverables to meet the evolving needs of our customer & still meet agreed timelines
• Objective, data-driven decision making to recommend application disposition

IT Impact:

• Comprehensive application assessment
• Alignment to AWS best practices and well architected framework
• Estimated future running costs helping create a firm business case for approval
• Detailed cloud migration roadmap with committed milestones

Conclusion

The Eviden AppMod Toolkit is a comprehensive solution that combines Eviden’s expertise in cloud modernization, system integration, consulting, and industry knowledge with AWS’s highly scalable and secure cloud services. Leveraging the latest GenAI technologies, this toolkit streamlines your digital transformation journey, offering:

• Deep Insights: Gain objective decision-making capabilities based on firm business case inputs, leveraging 10+ comprehensive reports from the assessment phase.
• Accelerated Modernization: Experience on average a 40% – 70% reduction in effort, time & cost to deliver
• AWS Integration: Seamless integration with the latest AWS cloud services.
• Industry Expertise: Benefit from Eviden’s industry-specific expertise and best practices, minimizing transformation risks.
• Enjoy enhanced scalability, security, and operational efficiency at par with industry standards.

Unlock your digital transformation potential with the Eviden’s Application Modernisation Toolkit. Contact us to learn more about how this toolkit can support your application modernisation requirements.

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Eviden – AWS Partner Spotlight

Eviden is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner in data-driven, trusted and sustainable digital transformation. Eviden brings together its experience, assets and innovation to expertly guide you through change and turn your vision into reality.

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