An empirical study of the systemic and technical migration towards microservices

Context: As many organizations modernize their software architecture and transition to the cloud, migrations towards microservices become more popular. Even though such migrations help to achieve organizational agility and effectiveness in software development, they are also highly complex, long-running, and multi-faceted. Objective: In this study we aim to comprehensively map the journey towards microservices and describe in detail what such a migration entails. In particular, we aim to discuss not only the technical migration, but also the long-term journey of change, on a systemic level. Method: Our research method is an inductive, qualitative study on two data sources. Two main methodological steps take place – interviews and analysis of discussions from StackOverflow. The analysis of both, the 19 interviews and 215 StackOverflow discussions, is based on techniques found in grounded theory. Results: Our results depict the migration journey, as it materializes within the migrating organization, from structural changes to specific technical changes that take place in the work of engineers. We provide an overview of how microservices migrations take place as well as a deconstruction of high level modes of change to specific solution outcomes. Our theory contains 2 modes of change taking place in migration iterations, 14 activities and 53 solution outcomes of engineers. One of our findings is on the architectural change that is iterative and needs both a long and short term perspective, including both business and technical understanding. In addition, we found that a big proportion of the technical migration has to do with setting up supporting artifacts and changing the paradigm that software is developed

Balancing Migration: Overcoming the challenge to SaaS provisioning for core business activities: A South African case study

Cloud computing provides shared information and communication technology (ICT) resources to individuals and organisations, including hardware and software resources that were previously too costly for an individual organisation to manage and own. Cloud computing makes vast amounts of ICT resources available to business organisations, resources that can improve business processes and allow business organisations to leverage ICT in ways that were previously impossible. The correct implementation, adoption and usage of ICT within a business organisation can lead to enhancements in productivity, innovation, and new products and services, as well as the reduction of production costs. Recent literature has attested to the fact that the adoption of cloud computing has been much lower than expected. Business organisations that have adopted cloud computing have done so mainly in products and services that can be categorised as support or non-core activities, such as HR, accounting, and marketing. In order to understand why the adoption pattern of cloud computing in business organisations has focused mainly on non-core activities, this study aims to identify the core challenge facing cloud service providers (CSPs) that provision cloud solutions to business organisations in the investment management industry. These would include cloud solutions that investment managers can use in their core business activities. Furthermore, the aim of this dissertation is to identify how CSPs overcome the core challenge faced. A case study was performed on a single CSP that provisions a SaaS solution to the investment management sector in South Africa. The case study identified migration as the core challenge experienced by CSPs. Classical grounded theory was used to generate the theory of “Balancing Migration” being the resolution to the core challenge identified. The results of the study point to the fact that investment management organisations have processes and systems that have become entrenched in their business over many years. Migrating an established system to the cloud is more than just substituting software. Migration to the cloud requires investment managers to migrate both business processes and operating strategy, and to migrate the actual software products and infrastructure. A CSP provisioning a SaaS solution for a core business activity needs to migrate the products that they offer as well as their business strategy. The theory of “Balancing Migration” proposes that these four categories of migration challenges need to be addressed simultaneously and holistically. In summary, “Migration” is the core concern to a CSP provisioning a SaaS solution for a core business activity, and “balancing migration” is how this core concern is resolved

A framework for architecture-driven migration of legacy systems to cloud-enabled software

This is the companion volume of the Proceeding of the Eleventh Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA 2014)With the widespread adoption of cloud computing, an increasing number of organizations view it as an important business strategy to evolve their legacy applications to cloud-enabled infrastructures. We present a framework, named Legacy-to-Cloud Migration Horseshoe, for supporting the migration of legacy systems to cloud computing. The framework leverages the software reengineering concepts that aim to recover the architecture from legacy source code. Then the framework exploits the software evolution concepts to support architecture-driven migration of legacy systems to cloud-based architectures. The Legacy-to-Cloud Migration Horseshoe comprises of four processes: (i) architecture migration planning, (ii) architecture recovery and consistency, (iii) architecture transformation and (iv) architecture-based development of cloud-enabled software. We aim to discover, document and apply the migration process patterns that enhance the reusability of migration processes. We also discuss the required tool support that we intend to provide through our ongoing work in this area.Aakash Ahmad, Muhammad Ali Baba

VESTIGE OF THE PRESENT SOCIO-TECHNICAL FACTORS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF LEGACY PERCEPTIONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS ARTIFACTS

Legacy systems are formerly adequate incumbent information systems perceived as insufficient through a combination of social and technical factors. Legacy systems continue to be an expensive and challenging information technology asset for organizations to manage. However, much of the existing information systems literature does not focus on end-of-life information systems phenomena. This dissertation responds to this need for research on end-of-life information systems phenomena from a behavioral perspective by reviewing the information systems literature on legacy systems, developing a definition of legacy systems as a socio-technical construction, creating a scale for measuring a legacy perception of a system, and developing four additional scales for measuring the characteristics of information technology artifacts. New scales and statistical models were tested through a survey of IT managers in the United States.Findings from this research provide support for legacy perception as a new construct. Results also suggest that system age is not a key influencer of legacy perception, but system capability shortcomings and a lack of system support availability are key influences. This research also models interactions of the physical structures of legacy systems, finding that integration and complexity positively influence the adaptability of legacy system artifacts. As well as the adaptability of an artifact and state tracking abilities have a positive influence on representational fidelity. This study also finds that a legacy perception of a system positively influences both system investment behaviors and intentions to replace a system. Implications for theory and practice and opportunities for future research are discussed