The future of application delivery starts with modernization

IDC
estimates
that

750
million
cloud
native
will
be
built
by
2025.
Where
and
how
these
applications
are
deployed
will
impact
time
to
market
and
value
realization.
The
reality
is
that
application
landscapes
are
complex,
and
they
challenge
enterprises
to
maintain
and
modernize
existing
infrastructure,
while
delivering
new
cloud-native
features.
Three
in
four
executives
reported

disparate
systems
in
their
organizations
and
that
a
lack
of
skills,
resources
and
common
operational
practices
challenge
business
objectives.

Executives
know
they
must
modernize.
In
fact,
83%
of
IT
executives
feel
that
modernization
is
central
to
their
organization’s
strategy,
but
only
27%
say
their
organizations
have

modernized
the
requisite
workflows
(including
applications,
data
and
underlying
systems).
But
it’s
clear
that
CIOs
who
prioritize
modernization
capture
greater
returns
from
business
transformation.

CIOs
can
enable
application
modernization
through
several
factors

1.
Access
to
new
software
innovation:

Software
has
become
the
lifeline
of
all
domains.
The
effect
has
increased
exponentially
with
the
advent
of
AI,
ML,
Hybrid
Cloud,
DevSecOps
and
there
are
more
advances
coming.
Organizations
must
keep
up
with
the
technology
of
today
so
they
can
innovate
and
satisfy
the
ever-changing
needs
of
the
customers.

Each
organization
is
trying
to
excel
by
adopting
modern
innovative
software
practices—not
just
to

grow,
but
to

survive.
Many
organizations
have
disappeared
from
the
technology
map
because
of
failing
to
adapt
and
adopt
innovation
quickly.

2.
Improved
speed
and
agility:

The
world
is
changing
rapidly
and
technology
is
the
biggest
enabler
for
this
change.
Organizations
need
full
flexibility
to
address
important
questions,
including:

1. How
   soon
   can
   you
   test
   your
   hypothesis
   (such
   as
   how
   many
   geographies
   or
   which
   user
   personas)?
2. How
   quickly
   can
   features
   be
   introduced
   into
   the
   market
   (from
   concept
   to
   production)
   and
   beat
   the
   competition?
3. How
   can
   you
   pivot
   efficiently
   in
   response
   to
   the
   changing
   market
   conditions?
4. How
   can
   you
   realise
   value
   from
   your
   innovation
   sooner?
5. How
   can
   you
   keep
   innovating
   consistently
   while
   delivering
   value?
6. How
   efficient
   is
   your
   release
   process?

If
your
responses
are
negative
to
the
questions
above,
then,
you
are
losing
ground
to
your
competitors.
Adopt
developer
tooling
and
agile
processes
to
increase
your
velocity
and
help
you
address
these
issues.

3.
Value
delivery
and
reduced
business
cost

Decreasing
production
costs
helps
drive
agility
by
realigning
with
new
business
goals
sooner.
It
is
imperative
that
you
save
costs
in
everything:
automation
will
help
drive
faster
feature
go-lives,
faster
feedback
loops,
less
waiting
and
coordination
times,
high
quality
test
frameworks,
resilient
platforms,
easy
and
fast
upgrades,
zero
downtimes
among
others.

Beyond
traditional
cost
reduction
methods,
addressing
sustainability
has
emerged
as
an
essential
part
of
modern
cost
reduction
approaches.


By
2027,
25%
of
CIOs
will
have
compensation
linked
to
their
sustainable
technology
impact.

Modernization
can
substantially
address
sustainability
goals.
Decreasing
your
dependence
on
hardware,
increasing
your
usage
of
auto-provisioned
infrastructure
and
leveraging
reusable
components
and
modules
are
concrete
ways
to
improve
your
impact
on
the
environment.

4.
Reduced
risk
and
technical
debt:

All
legacy
releases
are
inherently
risky
due
to
a
longer
release
cycle.
The
risks
of
not
modernizing
your
applications
include
increased
downtime,
combined
with
a
limited
and
slow
response
time
to
rapidly
changing
customer
needs.
Downtimes
and
slow
releases
can
have
a
huge
impact
on
an
organization’s
economics
and
impair
customer
relationships.
Your
existing
applications
also
form
a
large
part
of
your
organization’s
technical
debt,
with
monolithic
architectures
and
development
processes.
And
in
many
cases,
there
is
a
lack
of
knowledgeable
developers
that
know
how
to
update
and
build
them.

In
a
survey,

41%
of
the
respondents
selected
‘Reducing
Tech
debt/Upgrading
Legacy
Systems’
as
the
top
priority.
Technical
debt
is
also
very
expensive
and
incurs
with
time.
For
example,

the
cost
of
the
technical
debt
in
US
was

$1.52
trillion
in
2022. 

The
glossy
features
take
the
limelight,
while
technical
debt
is
pushed
to
the
bottom
of
the
backlogs.
Gradually,
the
technical
debt
impedes
the
new
feature
development,
thus
increasing
the
risk
and
the
cost
to
fix
the
former.

Runtime
modernization
is
a
big
step
to
curb
such
issues.
It
needs
minimal
setup.
It
supports
futureproofing
by
allowing
an
easy
progression
to
containers
and
microservices.

5.
Developer
Experience:

A
truism
is
emerging
in
the
software
industry:
good
developer
experience
leads
to
great
customer
experience.

By
2026,
approximately



80%
of
software
engineering

organizations

will
establish
platform
teams
as
internal
providers
of
reusable
services,
components
and
tools
for
application
delivery.
Many
organizations
are
focusing
their
efforts
to
improve
the
developer
experience
to
become
more
agile
and
responsive.

This
also
cuts
down
the
cognitive
load
and
connects
the
developers’
morale
with
the
business
value.
The
few
areas
which
yield
great
results
are
breaking
up
complex
architectures,
increasing
the
use
of
modern
development
tooling
and
processes,
and
creating
internal
platforms
with
reusable
configurable
components.

Adopt
the
right
technology
and
tooling
for
success

IBM
Cloud
Pak
for
Applications
(CP4Apps)
delivers
a
set
of
end-to-end
hybrid
cloud
application
services
providing
the
ultimate
flexibility
for
deployments,
building
new
cloud-native
applications,
refactoring
and
re-platforming
existing
applications.
It
helps
you
on
your
application
modernization
journey
by
providing
the
following
benefits:

IBM
Cloud
Pak®
for
Applications
(CP4Apps)
delivers
a
comprehensive
set
of
integrated
products
and
features
that
help
organizations
continuously
modernize
their
existing
application
and
innovate
with
new
cloud-native
microservices:

• All-inclusive
  runtimes
  supporting
  VMs
  and
  containers
  for
  Java
  applications
• AI
  powered
  tools
  to
  refactor
  apps:
  Transformation
  Advisor,
  Mono2Micro,
  Migration
  Toolkit
• Kubernetes
  based
  platform
  (OpenShift)
  supporting
  on-prem
  and
  cloud

Let’s
have
a
look
at
the


fine
print:

• Application
  runtimes
  of
  your
  choice
  such
  as
  IBM
  WebSphere®
  Application
  Server
  (WAS),
  IBM
  WAS
  ND,
  IBM
  WebSphere
  Liberty,
  Open
  Liberty®,
  Red
  Hat
  JBoss®
  EAP,
  Quarkus,
  Tomcat
  and
  more
• Frameworks
  and
  technologies
  like
  Red
  Hat
  Data
  Grid,
  Node.js,
  OpenJDK,
  Spring
  Boot
  and
  more
• Application
  modernization
  tools
  including
  IBM
  Transformation
  Advisor,
  IBM
  Mono2Micro,
  IBM
  WebSphere
  Migration
  Tool
  Kit
  and
  Red
  Hat
  Migration
  Tool
  Kit
  for
  Applications
• Open-source
  Kubernetes
  container
  platform
  Red
  Hat
  OpenShift

Now,
let’s
take
a
look
at

IBM
WebSphere
Liberty,
one
of
the
runtimes
available
in
CP4Apps.
It
is
a
lightweight,
fast
Java
runtime.
Key
benefits
of
Liberty
include:

• Get
  faster
  start
  time
  with
  scale
  on-demand:
  featuring
  ‘InstantOn’
  delivering
  launch
  times
  for
  applications
  that
  are
  10X
  faster
  than
  standard
  Java.
  Liberty
  InstantOn
  is
  also
  ideal
  for
  serverless,
  event-driven
  application
  architectures,
  
  enabling
  rapid
  scaling
  up
  and
  down—based
  on
  demand.
• Take
  out
  technical
  debt
  and
  decrease
  ‘Mean
  time
  to
  Recovery’
  with
  
  
  Zero
  Migration:
  Liberty
  is
  the
  only
  Java
  runtime
  that
  allows
  you
  to
  maintain
  the
  latest
  version
  without
  the
  new
  code
  or
  config
  and
  without
  the
  cost
  of
  migration
  or
  unplanned
  downtime.
  It
  helps
  in
  minimizing
  the
  technical
  debt,
  too.
• Plug
  anywhere:
  Liberty
  is
  compatible
  with
  diverse
  applications/architectures:
  monoliths,
  macroservices,
  or
  microservices
• Increase
  productivity
  and
  save
  costs

Average
annual
benefits
per
organization:

Category	Per Organization
Developer benefits	$11,795,139
Staff benefits	$2,435,714
Business productivity benefits	$630,070
IT cost savings	$630,070
Total Cost Savings	$15,573,597

Scroll
to
view
full
table

Cloud
Pak
for
Applications
customers
are
excited
by
the
benefits
they
are
seeing
with
Liberty
for
their
modernization
efforts:

Work
with
us
to
deliver
an
application
landscape
that
transforms
with
your
business.

Start
your
continuous
modernization
effort
now
with
Cloud
Pak
for
Applications