Refactor

Refactor involves rearchitecting and rewriting an application before migrating it to the cloud to make it a cloud-native application. Cloud-native applications are applications that have been designed, architected, and built to perform efficiently in a cloud environment. The benefits of these cloud-inherent capabilities include scalability, security, agility, and cost-efficiency.

Refactoring requires more time and resources to recode the application and re-architecture it before it can be migrated. This approach is commonly used by organizations that have extensive cloud experience or a highly skilled workforce. An alternative option for refactoring is to migrate your application to the cloud and then optimize it.

Common examples of refactoring include the following:

• Changing platforms such as AIX to UNIX
• Database transition from traditional to the cloud build
• Replacing middleware products
• Rearchitecting the application from monolithic to microservice
• Rebuilding application architecture such as containerizing or serverless
• Recoding application components

Sometimes, you may find a large effort being made to rebuild an application. As an architect, you should evaluate if purchasing the Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) product helps you get a better return on investment (ROI). Let's explore the repurchase strategy in more detail.