Rediger

Modernization guides

Modernizing cloud workloads typically involves one or more of three core strategies: replatform, refactor, and rearchitect. This guide provides categorized links to relevant guidance for each strategy. While not exhaustive, it provides a useful starting point for planning your modernization effort.

Replatform

Replatforming involves moving workload components to platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings with minimal code changes. Use this approach when you need to reduce operational overhead or improve reliability without a full redevelopment.

Replatform category Replatform guidance Guidance type
VM-based components to Azure PaaS Technology choices for Azure
Reliable web app pattern
Architecture guide
Architecture
Other cloud to Azure PaaS AWS to Azure PaaS
Google cloud to Azure PaaS
Migration guide
Migration guide

Refactor

Refactoring focuses on modifying application code to improve maintainability, performance, or alignment with cloud best practices. Use this approach when technical debt is reducing development velocity or when the code is not optimized for cloud environments.

Refactor category Refactor guidance Guidance type
Reliability Self-preservation
Monitor applications
Design guide
Design guide
Security Protect application secrets
Secure networking
Design guide
Design guide
Operational Excellence Upgrade .NET version
Adopt infrastructure as code
Instrument application
Collect app data
Task automation
Safe deployment practices
.NET guide
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Cost optimization Optimize flow costs
Optimize data costs
Optimize code costs
Reduce workload demand
Optimize development environments
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Performance efficiency Design application code to scale
Partition datasets
Optimize code performance
Optimize data performance
Prioritize critical flows
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide
Design guide

Rearchitect

Rearchitecting involves redesigning the application architecture to enable scalability, agility, or innovation. Use this approach when the current design restricts scalability or cloud-native capabilities.

Rearchitect category Rearchitect guidance Guidance type
Decouple components Microservices architecture style
Modern web app pattern
Architecture
Architecture
Use multiple regions Highly available zone-redundant web application
Multi-region load balancing with Traffic Manager
Design guide
Architecture
Consolidate services Consolidation Design guide
Use asynchronous messaging Asynchronous messaging options
Modern web app pattern
Architecture guide
Architecture
Use microservices Design infrastructure to scale
Microservices architecture
Modern web app pattern
Design guide
Architecture guide
Architecture
Add caching Reliable web app pattern
Use caching
Architecture
Design guide
Change data architecture Big data architecture style
Event-driven architecture style
Use polyglot persistence
Architecture guide
Design guide

Next steps

  1. Prepare organization for cloud modernization
  2. Plan your cloud modernization
  3. Execute your cloud modernization
  4. Optimize workloads after modernization