In a recent survey of over 400 top IT executives in North America, three out of four respondents revealed that their organizations still rely on disparate systems using traditional technologies. Most executives reported being in the planning or initial stages of modernization efforts.
Maintaining these traditional technologies, often termed as “technical debt,” can lead to significant challenges such as delayed development projects, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and operational inefficiencies. With the rise of generative AI (gen AI), the diversity of business applications continues to grow, exacerbating the issue of technical debt.
However, gen AI also presents an opportunity for application modernization to evolve into a dynamic process. Traditionally, modernization involved updating legacy applications to modern cloud environments through automated methods.
Today, modernization spans the entire application lifecycle, encompassing code, data, and user experiences. IBM is introducing the IBM watsonx™ Code Assistant for Enterprise Java Applications, slated for release later this year. This tool leverages gen AI and automation to support the complete application lifecycle, assisting developers from initial understanding and planning to transformation, validation, and deployment.
Using this tool, developers can streamline the modernization process:
- Application Assessment: Evaluate application functionality, feasibility of modernization, and potential ROI to prioritize modernization efforts effectively.
- Modernization Planning: Generate scalable modernization strategies, adapting plans dynamically to changing environments and client needs.
- Application Transformation: Automate the modernization of application components, extracting and transforming code, business functions, and rules with gen AI support.
- Application Testing: Automatically generate tests at various levels (unit, module, integration) to ensure reliability.
- Automated Deployment: Create context-aware CI/CD pipelines for efficient deployment.
IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Enterprise Java Applications facilitates ongoing application modernization by supporting Java version upgrades and enabling the creation of new Java applications. A technology preview will be available in June, with general availability expected later this year.
