Experienced CTOs know that it’s impossible to create software products that stand the test of time. Applications must be supported by software updates and kept up to date to not only meet security and compatibility requirements, but also be relevant to the consumer. This not only helps businesses maintain their edge in the market, but also helps them save money. Instead of investing in maintaining outdated and broken software, you can invest more in the future.
These principles help companies continue to promote their products and offer consumers competitive value propositions. Next, we’ll look at various strategies for modernizing your web application with this in mind.
Software Upgrade
There are two main ways to upgrade software:
- Evolution: Slow and steady wins races. Enterprises gradually improve the architecture of the project and make changes to the needs of the user.
- Revolution: if necessary, completely rewrite the project code.
Each of them outdated approaches to application modernization has its advantages and disadvantages. Which one your business should choose will depend on the project and the current state of your application.
Version Upgrade: Improving Your Product Components
Applications use libraries, languages, and other technologies. These individual components may become obsolete over time. When these components are not updated, it can have serious consequences for the functionality and security of the project. A good example of this issue is that 80% of PHP users are using outdated versions of PHP such as PHP 7.4. However, only PHP 8.0 and above are officially supported. Without a timely Modernization of PHP applications, compatibility, performance and security issues may be found.
The benefits of updating these components of your application far outweigh the disadvantages. Updating your application and its components will increase the security of your product by eliminating potential vulnerabilities. Updates can also provide greater compatibility between components and critical libraries. The same goes for software integrations. Without a full update, some integrations will not work.
In addition, new features introduced as a result of updates can greatly improve your product. Not only that, but updating these components can make it easier for developers to work with them. Version upgrades can also improve performance, making your product more streamlined and efficient.
UX Upgrade: User Experience Upgrade
UI trends change over time. Not only is it important to stay on top of visual design trends, but it’s also important to think about how to make your product more user-friendly. Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider updating the user interface:
- Ease of use: if your product is uncomfortable or difficult for consumers to use, it is likely that changes can be made to improve their experience. Sometimes even minor changes can be enough to make a huge difference.
- Device Compatibility: making sure your software renders correctly on all devices is another important possibility to consider. It can also be useful for companies that want to expand their applications for use in newer form factors. For example, foldable devices and VR/AR headsets require many developers to rethink how UX/UI should be designed to work with these platforms.
- Business goals and consumer needs: sometimes UI and UX changes are necessary due to changing business goals or consumer interests. The interface you use should reflect what you want to achieve. It must also consider users and their needs.
Another important opportunity that businesses can take advantage of is the right to web accessibility. Ensuring that the UX/UI of software is designed with the goal of providing fairness to users with different needs, preferences and identities, especially those who have historically been marginalized or underrepresented. This can not only improve the user experience for everyone, but also build trust and loyalty among users. Because of this, UX upgrades can lead to greater customer satisfaction and increased sales.
Integrations: Update and Maintain API Integrations
Integration with third party technologies can be critical to the success of your application. However, over time, companies need to pay attention to how these integrations evolve and affect their products. For example, recent price changes for the Reddit API have forced third-party app developers to rethink their strategy for using Reddit integrations.
Two important strategies to consider when upgrading legacy applications with API connections:
- To make it easier for enterprises to consume legacy services, organizations can either create RESTful APIs that wrap them, or provide API access to the web service operations they contain.
- Organizations can create smaller and more modular services by refactoring application code and exposing its functionality through an API.
API integration can make products incredibly efficient. Instead of using unreliable and complex connections in codebases, integration is a reusable technique that can connect multiple systems. APIs can also use data from legacy systems and provide users with a high-quality experience.
With these benefits, API integration allows systems to be upgraded faster through reusable code. This reusable code is the same no matter which part of the application it is used for, which provides more flexibility.
Platform Migration: From One Environment to Another
Your business may need to migrate your product from one platform to another. This may be the result of the old platform being discontinued, or the new alternative simply proving to be much more profitable for the business in the long run. Whether it’s moving applications to a new data center or to a private cloud network, migration can be a headache if not done right. Applications are often designed to work in specific environments. Changing them for compatibility can be tricky, as it requires the project to be modified to work in the new environment.
When modifying an application for porting, developers strive to preserve the functionality of the application while adapting it to the new platform. There are ways around this. For example, some applications can be containerized using Docker or run using a virtual machine. However, an application can run more efficiently if it is optimized to run on bare metal. The business needs to assess the situation and decide which approach is best for them.
Perhaps you only need to migrate part of your application, such as the backend or frontend. For example, recently .NET projects often migrate from JavaScript to Blazor to improve security and interactivity. Complete Blazor web development can only be achieved in C# and .NET without JavaScript.
Reengineering: Redesign and Improve Your Application
Software reengineering is when developers analyze, modify, and reverse engineer an existing product to improve its performance and quality over time. As a modernization method, reengineering allows developers to meet the ever-changing needs of businesses and consumers by cleaning up code.
To do this, software reengineering involves reviewing the design, architecture, code, and documentation of existing software. By identifying product flaws, developers find a starting point for correcting and improving the project. This may include new methods, technologies and tools for reengineering.
Which Modernization Strategy to Choose?
Businesses should audit their products before choosing upgrade methods. Here are some of the key areas to look into during a technical audit before making a decision:
- Architecture: identify issues such as tight coupling, scalability issues, and poor modularity.
- Code quality: readability, maintainability, and compliance with the code standard.
- Technology stack: evaluate the technologies used, such as languages, platforms, and libraries, to see what needs to be updated.
- Integrations: check for compatibility issues.
- Safety: identify weaknesses and weaknesses in authentication, authorization, data encryption and other threats.
- Performance: Examine response time, scalability, and throughput.
- Documentation: Project documentation should be comprehensive, complete, and easy to read by developers, administrators, and end users.
By identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your web application, you can make the best decision about how to modernize it.
Modernize Your Application
Now that you know how Web Application Modernization works and how to audit your product, you can make an informed decision about how to make changes and upgrades.
When choosing a team to modernize your application, take into account the experience of previous projects, as well as the company’s policy on protection. software intellectual property rights. Modernizing applications can be a daunting task, but with an experienced software development team, you can achieve your goals and secure the future of your product in a competitive market.