vFunction tool assesses technical debt for app modernization

App modernization platform provider, vFunction, has released a new tool called vFunction Assessment Hub to help CIOs and other IT decision makers understand the complexity and risk of their existing legacy applications before deciding to modernize – a process usually associated with the assumption of technical debt.

Market demands for faster and better services, along with the impact of the pandemic on revenue and operations, have pressured organizations to modernize their legacy apps. App modernization is the process of overhauling or updating software or architecture to achieve agility and innovation in business operations.

Modernization of apps based on a composable According to Gartner, application architecture can help companies outperform the competition by 80% when implementing new features.

What is technical debt?

Accelerating app development typically results in technical debt, which occurs when companies deliver suboptimal code—code that may need tweaking later.

vFunction Assessment Hub provides a technical debt score that analyzes code and the associated risks of a change. It follows the 2021 release of the vFunction Modernization Hub platform, which uses AI and a passive Java Virtual Machine (JVM) agent to transform complex legacy applications, often referred to as monoliths and megaliths, into microservices.

“The Technical Debt Score shows how easy or difficult it is to maintain an application. The more complex or intricate the code, the more difficult it is to monitor or maintain. The code becomes complex because there are too many dependencies woven into it. This means that a change affects multiple parts of the code, increasing the risk of a change,” said Moti Rafalin, CEO of vFunction.

Modern software should be built in a modular way with well-defined APIs that allow companies to accelerate engineering processes and give them the ability to scale apps and unlock the true potential of moving to the cloud, Rafalin said.

CIOs prioritize modernization efforts

“Given the complexity and interdependence of today’s multi-faceted use cases, CIOs and technology leaders need to prioritize their modernization efforts before pulling on strings that can unravel further complexity,” said Jason English, principal analyst at Intellyx.

“The vFunction Assessment Hub provides an entry point for assessing the ROI of dismantling legacy monoliths and decoupling dependencies so that refactoring efforts can be better aligned with business goals,” said English.

vFunction’s Rafalin believes that the notion of App modernization is often confused with the term migration, under which companies move their existing applications to the cloud.

Moving to the cloud offers developer Opportunities and legacy application code change is required to modernize an existing legacy application, the CEO said, adding that the Assessment Hub tool will act as a presales tool for its Modernization Hub platform.

“When people are trying to migrate to the cloud, ‘lifting and shifting’ monolithic applications isn’t enough,” agreed Steven Dickens, senior analyst at Futurum Research.

vFunction also has partnerships with hyperscalers like AWS, Oracle, Google Cloud and Microsoft to complement the capabilities of their application modernization platforms and help companies move to the cloud, Rafalin said.

The vFunction Assessment Hub, now generally available and in the pilot phase with 12 vFunction customers, is now available as a free trial and available on the AWS Marketplace.

The tool is also available through vFunction partnerships with leading system integrators and cloud service providers, Rafalin said.