Cloud computing has had a massive impact on technology use in business.  Thanks to improvements in performance and the future preparation that comes with application modernization, organizations are increasingly moving their applications to the cloud through services provided by Microsoft Azure.

What does Application Modernization mean in Azure? 

For those unfamiliar with cloud services or Azure, cloud computing refers to the availability of computer resources through the internet where hardware and software components, such as servers and databases, are provided on-demand. Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that offers an assortment of tools and services for businesses to develop and manage applications. 

Modernizing an application to a cloud-first model refers to the process of updating and migrating an application to use cloud computing resources.  There are many cloud services available through Microsoft Azure to modernize applications to fit a variety of business needs. 

More information on application modernization is available through Microsoft’s documentation.

Why migrate an application to Azure? 

Web applications, as well as other types of workloads, can benefit greatly from modernizing through Microsoft Azure.  Let’s take a quick look at some of the primary benefits of a migration to Azure: 

Scalability and Performance 

As applications grow and business needs change, it often becomes necessary to increase or decrease the number of resources utilized by an application to scale with demand.  This is difficult and costly to achieve when configuring your own infrastructure. It requires investments like regularly adding, removing, or upgrading machines. 

Azure provides many options for scalability to allow infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing application, or to scale down when necessary.  In addition, Azure is capable of scaling resources automatically to optimize application performance through storage, processing capacity, and bandwidth.  This allows organizations to quickly respond to changing business needs in a cost-effective manner. 

Reliability

Hosting web applications necessitates infrastructure that comes with cost and risk.  It takes time and effort to set up the required hardware and software. There are additional costs that come with maintaining on-premise applications, including licensing, software updates, networking, and security. 

When hosting your own infrastructure, what happens if a server goes down, or the internet goes out?  These are time-sensitive problems that often require specialists to resolve appropriately.   

By migrating to an Azure-hosted solution, Microsoft owns these risks and provides high availability, with capabilities for backup and disaster recovery.  This availability also extends to geographic redundancy – the replication of data across different physical locations – which protects data from outages and disasters. Furthermore, applications can have a presence in multiple regions, providing an improved application experience to users worldwide. 

Security 

Ample security is essential to web applications, particularly those that are customer-facing or process sensitive data.  Security breaches can have disastrous and long-term consequences, but they are preventable.  Azure offers enhanced security to protect data and prevent cyberattacks on your applications.  Microsoft provides secure infrastructure and operations through Azure, with several security features and tools available for automatically detecting and preventing threats. 

What are some options for getting started with Azure? 

Picking the correct cloud services is an important initial step in the modernization process.  There are several considerations to make when migrating your application to the cloud – what data storage options best meet the requirements of the application?  Which services are compatible with other technologies used by your application?  It is essential to understand the services offered by Azure to get the most out of modernization. 

Now, let’s look at a few options for services used in migrating applications to the cloud: 

Azure App Service and Containers 

The Azure App Service plan is a great option for hosting web applications.  It provides the resources for applications using .NET Framework, .NET Core, Java, Python, Node.js, and countless other languages and frameworks.  Azure App Service provides the benefits of the Azure platform to web applications and also has support for integration with other services through Azure.   

Azure App Service also provides support for Windows and Linux containers, which are software packages that contain all necessary code, files, and dependencies to run an application.  Containers streamline deployment and are readily transferable across environments. 

Learn more about Azure App Service through Microsoft’s documentation.

Azure Functions 

Azure Functions is a serverless option that simplifies development and deployment.  Automatically scale to meet demand and offer flexible pricing options to only pay for what resources are actively used.  They are ideal for systems that react to events such as web requests, database changes, or scheduled tasks.  Functions can be written in one of many languages with built-in support, and custom handlers allow other languages to be used as well.  Azure Functions are best suited for code that can take full advantage of scalability. 

Learn more about Azure Functions through Microsoft’s documentation.

Virtual Machines 

Azure virtual machines (VMs) allow you to emulate computers with a great degree of customization through Microsoft’s infrastructure.  They are highly adaptable to the specific needs of business applications and require little maintenance.  Like other services, VMs are highly scalable, and you only pay for time spent actively using the VMs.  Costs are based on storage space and consumption. 

Learn more about Virtual Machines through Microsoft’s documentation.

Overview

This is but a brief introduction to the options and factors to consider when planning an application modernization through Microsoft Azure.  Other considerations include development stack, authorization, licensing, storage, and external integrations, amongst others.  Azure provides cloud support for a wide range of applications that run on all sorts of frameworks, operating systems, databases, and languages. 

Need help deciding which Azure migration option is best for your web application or workload?  Total Solutions offers guidance through its Azure Application Modernization Jumpstart to simplify the modernization process and help you select the cloud computing services that best fit your business requirements.