Modernizing applications

Even older applications can sometimes be partially modernized—even if you cannot move the entire system, individual components might still be able to make use of better Azure managed services. In these cases, we should always at least consider if we can refactor.

Refactoring involves making minimal changes to the application code to adapt it to the Azure cloud environment. This approach is suitable for applications that can benefit from managed services and platform capabilities offered by Azure without requiring a complete architectural overhaul. The refactoring approach is well suited for applications that have well-defined components or modules, use common programming languages, and have relatively straightforward dependencies.

Of course, a lot depends on the age of the application you are considering and its current platform. Solutions built in the past 10 years or so have a high chance of being built as n-tier architectures, whereby it is...