A Legacy Application Meta-model for Modernization

Abstract

Cloud computing provides many advantages to enterprises such as rapid elasticity, reduced operational costs, no upfront investment, resource pooling, so on. To take advantage of cloud benefits, enterprise attempt to move their legacy application to the cloud environment. However, many factors influence this decision. First one involves a full understanding of the legacy application architectural model from different view models such as business (e.g., defining application functionalities), implementation and data (e.g., the architecture of the application, the language used) and infrastructure (e.g., Hardware resources). Second, it requires choosing, in an efficiently way, the most suitable cloud services responding to users' needs. Finally, each cloud service adopted defines a scenario modernization based on Architecture Driven Modernization (ADM) which support a transformation of the legacy application to a cloud environment to satisfy new users demands. These concerns motivate the need for legacy application meta-model. This meta-model captures the high level of a legacy application regardless of technical details and represents three viewpoints (business viewpoints, implementation and data viewpoints and infrastructure viewpoints). Each viewpoint focuses on the application stakeholder perspectives. This meta-model helps also helps to make a decision about which view of the legacy application should be modernized and which cloud service (e.g., IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS) model is appropriate to be moved.