What is webMethods Cloud Container?
– Cloud Container is a managed Integration Services offering from Software AG. Cloud Container offers Cloud-Native Platform to deploy the integrations, APIs developed on on-premise to Cloud. This is commonly known as “lift & shift”. Gartner points out lift & shift is one of the Cloud Migration Strategies for the existing on-premise implementations.
Enterprise Cloud Transformation requires a concrete strategy. The key is to understand the current state of the landscape and apply the 6 R’s – Retain (Encapsulate), Rehost (lift & Shift), Re-platform (Lift-think-shift), Refactor, Re-Architect (Lift & Reshape) and Rebuild/Replace for the Cloud Transformation.
Figure 1: Effort, Optimization & Complexity Matrix of 6-Rs
Retain:
Most of the enterprises have applications built over the decades and would be running on the on-premise data centers without any issues. The question that might arise during Cloud Transformation for these cases is - does the application needs to be cloudified. What are the effects, costs, risks, impacts in codifying this? In some cases, the application needs to be retained at on-premise data centers for processing the local workload. Can the application’s features and value be leveraged and extended to the cloud? Cloud Container and webMethods.io iPaaS offers the Hybrid Connectivity (VPN/Agent/Direct/Private/etc. connectivity) to the on-premise/Inter Cloud resources and helps you to Encapsulate the existing features as APIs to the Cloud. Use webMethods.io API to enforce API consumption policies.
Rehost:
This is also known as the classic lift and shift where you can re-deploy the existing implementations to the cloud without modifying the features and functions. Few e-learnings to understand how webMethods Cloud Container offers this lift and shift.
- 1 - webMethods Cloud Container – Introduction
- 2 - webMethods Cloud Container - Solutions and Landscape Templates
- 3 - webMethods Cloud Container - On-premise Pre-requisites
- 4 - webMethods Cloud Container - Accessing Integrations
- 5 - webMethods Cloud Container - Deployment, Rollbacks, Deletion
- 6 - webMethods Cloud Container - Unit Test Framework
Rebuild / Replace:
If the efforts (costs, time) involved in re-writing or replacing the application are of less importance to the business needs, then it is not a bad idea to go for alternatives. Sometimes rebuilding the application/application component might require retaining the original scope and specification whereas replacement would require replacing with a new application with a new set of requirements. webMethods.io Integration combines low-code usability with high control of complex integrations and APIs. The integrations can be rebuilt/replaced using webMethods.io Integration.
Re-Platform:
Deploy the existing implementations in a way to satisfy the business needs to the new platform with minimal changes to the codebase, configuration keeping its original features and functions as is. This approach offers the possibility to optimize and improvise the existing implementations. This approach would also require a good amount of validation (testing & bug fixing) since the way the features are deployed and consumed would be different. For example, change the way integrations are consumed and apply Cloud ways of consuming the integrations.
Re-factor / Re-architect:
Refactor and optimize the existing implementations to use cloud features without changing the external behavior. For example, you might want to remove the file-based processing of your existing implementations to storage based (Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, etc.). There is also a possibility to re-shape the architecture and break down the implementation to Microservices and deploy each component individually. Both these approaches offer a good amount of optimization and would have a direct impact on the efforts. Cloud Container offers Cloud Streams for refactoring with the SaaS connectivity and solutions for the isolation of the Microservices.
Software AG cloud platforms offer the freedom of choosing the appropriate Cloud Migration strategy for the Enterprise.