Platforms, paradigms, processes and processing itself all evolve. Because the information technology industry crosses from one chasm to another on an apparently endless loop of perpetual change, applications and wider systems need to be almost continually modernized. Amazon Web Services wants to enable that process with AWS Transform, a service that now ships with new agentic capabilities to enable the rapid modernization of any code or application.
Why modernize in the first place? Because, says AWS, organizations should be looking to reduce their technical debt and shift information resources towards modern tiers that offer better, wider or more sustainable compute efficiencies.
Yes, legacy software is software that still works, but there are few purists that hang on to the notion …
Platforms, paradigms, processes and processing itself all evolve. Because the information technology industry crosses from one chasm to another on an apparently endless loop of perpetual change, applications and wider systems need to be almost continually modernized. Amazon Web Services wants to enable that process with AWS Transform, a service that now ships with new agentic capabilities to enable the rapid modernization of any code or application.
Why modernize in the first place? Because, says AWS, organizations should be looking to reduce their technical debt and shift information resources towards modern tiers that offer better, wider or more sustainable compute efficiencies.
Yes, legacy software is software that still works, but there are few purists that hang on to the notion of sustaining an archaic system when workable, functional, cost-effective and secure methods of moving forward exist. Organizations also need to modernize their complete Windows environments to reduce expensive licensing costs and improve security and performance… and AWS knows all this.
Agnostically Holistic Logistics
As such, AWS has been agnostically holistic in its approach and says that AWS Transform has a “custom capability” that makes large-scale modernizations possible for all legacy systems across any codebase, library or framework. The technology promises to perform “full-stack Windows modernization” (i.e. front end presentation layer technologies, middleware and drivers, plus core infrastructure mechanics such as operating system, memory and so on) across all layers,
“A typical organization spends 30% of its teams’ time on manual modernization work, otherwise known as tech debt. AWS Transform, the first agentic AI service for transforming Windows .NET applications, VMware systems and mainframes, has already helped customers modernize 4x faster with existing transformation capabilities. Customers have used AWS Transform to analyze an estimated 1.1 billion lines of code and save more than 810,000 hours of manual effort,” noted AWS, in a press statement.
AWS already said any codebase and any framework, the company has underlined the breadth of reach here and also said that AWS Transform works across API, runtime, architecture, language and even company-specific programming languages.
With pre-built transformations for common patterns (e.g., Java, Node.js and Python upgrades) and custom transformations for organization-specific tasks, a specialized agent executes consistent, repeatable and high-quality transformations.
**Cumulative Learning Via Transformation Agent **
The transformation agent automatically captures feedback and continues to improve over time, so each subsequent transformation becomes more reliable and efficient. In terms of real world use, modernizations that used to take two weeks now take three days.
“The AWS Transform agents start by analyzing the complete Windows stack and proposing coordinated modernization plans across all layers. Once approved, the agent transforms the application, UI framework, database and operating system, while providing updates and comprehensive transformation summaries. The new capabilities enable the rapid modernization of full-stack Windows and SQL Server systems to open source alternatives, freeing customers from expensive licensing agreements,” enthused AWS, in a technical product statement.
Three new agents in AWS Transform build on the code analysis, business rule extraction and technical documentation capabilities already available in the service. The agents help produce activity analysis to aid modernization and retirement decisions, blueprints for reimagining legacy code into clear business functions, capabilities, flows and data usage, as well as simplified domain decomposition.
Additionally, new task agents speed up test planning and validation by automatically generating test plans, test data collection scripts and automation scripts, which traditionally take up to half of project timelines.
Air Canada, Experian, QAD, Teamfront, Thomson Reuters and Verisk are currently using AWS Transform to help eliminate their tech debt.