Lessons being learnt from moving a legacy app to the cloud

Processing Legacy application Our legacy platform. Limitations Data Ingested Accessed via Browser Data Data is onsite Ingested via a crawler Installation via shell scripts Once deployed happy user can find their data Guaranteed physical and internet security

Things to consider before starting Not just about the technology Why/worth doing it? Consider customer experience as moving from sales driven to website driven Minimum friction needed to drive adoption Security becomes a concern due to being external to organisations Target segment

So what is the cloud?

So you are doing it...What now? Tidy up what you have, remove cruft Want to make items repeatable, automated, scalable Understand your limitations Understand what the cloud can and can’t deliver Security concerns become more apparent Releases no longer exist, just implementation of new features

Dilbert always has the answer….

So how did we plan to move? We virtualized the processes ready to move it to the cloud. Understand your stack complexity and business pressures Not a one time job We have Java/Python portions that communicate over the network - makes life a bit easier Make sure the business agrees Understand what you app can and can’t do Multi tenancy the backend / Physically separate? How many users? Costs?

Moved from manual deployments through to automated deployments Step 1 - Moving it whole Moved from manual deployments through to automated deployments Shell scripts replaced by configuration management (bash -> puppet) - straight port. Still a single physical appliance Still targeting legacy customers Man time reduced to hours rather than days Still had legacy issues (upgrades/maintenance)

Move configuration management from full stack to each component Step 2 - Splitting it up Move configuration management from full stack to each component Place components into logical groups for containers Add in logic to scale up each subsystem Get them to speak to each other Resolve scaling issues with original approach End up with legacy and new approaches to maintain

Step 3 - Getting it ready for the outside world Security now becomes a major concern Remote crawler VPN as have to access on site data Single backend per customer for initial release Understand and control costs Recurring revenue vs a single payment Choose your infrastructure provider Beta test with trusted customers

Step 4 - Going live (not quite there yet) Ordering system Support methods SLA Backups Business process change for deployments of releases Unknown Unknowns

What new issues will we face? Managing 3rd parties Security / Backups Availability Performance Feature requests Support Multi tenancy requirements Customer feedback methods

Questions? Q&A