The art and culture of modernizing a .NET monolith (XNT202)

Here is a detailed summary of the video transcription in markdown format, broken into sections for better readability:

Introduction

  • The presenters, Jagadish GTK and Chris Shell and Jeff Oliver from Tessera Network, are excited to share their journey of modernizing a .NET monolith application.
  • The session will cover the different strategies for migrating .NET applications to AWS, including rehosting, re-platforming, and refactoring.
  • Tessera Network's background and their transition from an on-premises solution to the AWS cloud will be discussed.

.NET History

  • Microsoft released the first version of the .NET Framework in 2002, which was a Windows-only system.
  • Microsoft later introduced .NET Core, a more modular, open-source, and cross-platform version of .NET.
  • The presenters will focus on the newer, cross-platform versions of .NET, as the platforms and services chosen on AWS depend on whether the applications are based on the .NET Framework or modern .NET.

Migration Strategies

  1. Rehosting (Lift-and-Shift):

    • This involves a simple lift-and-shift transition with no changes to the .NET application code.
    • The presenters used AWS Dedicated Hosts to enable cost-neutral migration by taking advantage of Windows License Mobility.
  2. Re-platforming:

    • This involves making small changes to the application's architecture to start reaping more benefits on AWS.
    • Examples include moving the database to Amazon RDS and containerizing the .NET Framework applications using Windows containers.
  3. Refactoring:

    • This involves a fundamental redesign of the application's architecture to maximize the benefits of the cloud, such as scalability, resilience, and cost optimization.
    • The presenters moved from the .NET Framework to modern .NET, which enabled them to host the applications on Linux-based instances and leverage other cloud-native services like AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate.

Tessera Network's Journey

  1. Rehosting:

    • Tessera Network started with a simple lift-and-shift migration to AWS using Dedicated Hosts to enable cost-neutral migration.
    • They also performed some light refactoring to help their team learn about AWS technologies, like Elastic Beanstalk and DynamoDB, in a low-risk environment.
  2. Re-platforming:

    • Tessera Network refactored two of their components from .NET Framework to modern .NET, allowing them to skip the Windows container step and move directly to Linux containers.
    • They also planned to migrate their client application to a web-based interface, containerize more components, and implement SQL Server Enterprise for better recovery time objectives.
  3. Refactoring:

    • Tessera Network's refactoring efforts focused on optimizing their platform for the cloud, including cost savings, improved efficiency, and reduced operational complexity.
    • They leveraged various AWS services, such as CloudFormation, AWS CDK, and AWS Fargate, to achieve these goals.

Lessons Learned

  • Tessera Network's core values of resilience, psychological safety, and innovation contributed to the success of their cloud journey.
  • They emphasized the importance of building T-shaped alignment across the organization, having well-placed evangelists, and shifting the mindset from paying off technical debt to making strategic investments.
  • The presenters shared a case study on how their containerized e-commerce workload on ECS resulted in a 54% cost reduction compared to the legacy dedicated host architecture.
  • Tessera Network's ability to quickly recover from the July 19th incident, using their automation and cloud-native approach, highlighted the benefits of their modernization efforts.

Modernization Tools

  • AWS App Container: A command-line tool that automates the containerization and migration of .NET applications to AWS.
  • AWS Microservice Extractor for .NET: A standalone tool that simplifies the process of extracting microservices from .NET monoliths.

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