Josh Dougherty (00:10):

As we look at moving past pitfalls and thinking about what app or which applications a nonprofit should be looking to modernize, are there some easy applications that tend to be the first ones you would tackle?

Rakesh Anantharaman (00:39):

Rationalization is not very strict to Redapt’s kind of a framework, but we have adopted from the app rationalization framework where we create what's called a factory. A factory pattern where, think of that more like an assembly line in a factory, an application goes through this factory. When it comes out the other side, it's going to land in a few places, one of a few places we have. It's going to be lift and shift into Azure. We may have to refactor the application—small updates here and there to make it workable on Azure. The third would be replatforming, where we may have to update the architecture of the application itself. Hey, this is fantastic, but this is a monolithic application for us to be able to make it more cloud-native. Then we have to update it and upgrade it to actually... Then that falls into replatforming.

Rehosting, refactoring, replatforming, and the fourth, last but not least, say it's happy where it is at, just don't play with it. Don't fix anything that is not broken. We have a framework and we create a pattern. It's going to change on a customer-by-customer basis, but that foundational strategy for the modernization journey is what we can help the customer achieve when we go through the rationalization. You can call it rationalization and breaking it down to app assessments after that. So we start at a higher level, slowly tackle one application at a time, and go through this. It'll be a quick win if we take one easy lift and shift application and say, “Hey, this is how much you were paying.”

More on the cost perspective. “This is how much you were paying hosting it on premise. This is what you would get going to Azure. This would be a cost, this would be your resiliency, this is how we can scale efficiently, and this is what your DR strategy is going to look like.” It's putting that process together, as far as how we go about choosing the applications and identifying those low-hanging fruits for a quick win to show the business.

Josh Dougherty (02:53):

Michael, do you have anything to add as far as those initial things, or initial opportunities people should be looking at?

Michael Kimbro (03:02):

I think that most people working in nonprofits know where their pain points are. They know which of their applications are causing them problems today. That should be factored into the strategy, as well. Maybe they're having problems with performance. The donors are trying to go to their website and it's too slow from the east coast. Or, they're global and they're having challenges with that. That's something that can be a quick win in Azure, if you look at combining some of these strategies where you're moving applications from an on-premise data center to something that can scale globally. Then the next thing to do is to take that and really split it apart to, or focus on it. Do application assessments and see where other pain points could be eliminated. That's helpful too, in getting that quick win for the nonprofit. If there's a pain point you can address, focus in on that.

Josh Dougherty (04:15):

We've been talking about how nonprofits can think about app mod and how Redapt can help bring someone through that process. How does someone get started, Rekesh, with Redapt if they feel this is applicable to where they are as an organization?

Rakesh Anantharaman (04:38):

Definitely contact us. We've been using our framework to support a better idea of our nonprofit, and also enterprise customers. I can go through a six step process we follow with every single customer. So The first thing we do is define a strategy, and that is a three part definition. Understand the motivation of the customer, typically the nonprofit wants to get more engagement with the donor. Second is identifying the desire, deciding business outcomes. This means more conversations with the customers, with the stakeholders inside the company to understand their vision, and also define their business justification.

This is what this modernization journey is going to get you. So, understand motivation, identify the desired business outcome, and define the business justification. That'll be the first step of defining a strategy. Once we have the strategy defined, the next would be planning. This is where I talked about the assessment and rationalization pieces coming in, where we have to take an inventory. We help and work with them to come up with an inventory of the digital estate. This is where we take all the applications. These are the applications, these are the technologies, this is where they're hosted, the breadth and depth of every single application present, and help them create a cloud adoption plan. We use Microsoft's cloud adoption plan.

We have a version that's inspired from Microsoft's cloud adoption plan. We help them create that. Last but not least, we define the skills and support readiness. We are putting the transition plan together. Yes, you'll be on Azures pretty soon. Once you're on Azure, what are some of the skills needed within your company, within your organization that you don't have right now to be able to support it as soon as the migration happens? This will be more documentation, more talking to the stakeholders at that point, creating a plan, and putting it together. Next would be the actual implementation. We call it the ready phase, where Azure’s, we call them landing zones. Where are the applications going to land?

What subscription? What tenant? And, actually preparing the cloud environment so the applications can be hosted and are ready to be hosted. We call it the landing zone implementation. That's the third step. Fourth would be migration and innovation, which are the bread and butter of what we do. We have the migrate, depending on where the reapplication would fit. Lift and shift, manage services or low code, no code platform. Those are some of the things we take into account there. Once it is migrated, how do we innovate? How do we use something like Azure Synapse if they already have some kind of a packaging ETL process, like extract, transform, and load? How do we transform that process into something like Azure Synapse? Once they are migrated, we all help them innovate over there. That's the fourth step in our process. The fifth would be governance.

There are plenty of benchmarking tools available on Azure directly. We use those tools to create benchmarks and establish governance practices. These are the set of features people will have access to Azure, to this particular resource. It should be all secure. And, how do we identify those business risks and put mitigation plans together for if something bad were to happen? That's more around the governance piece. The last would be managing. We have Azure monitoring. How do we monitor all the applications using something like application insights, Azure monitor, or OMS? How do they put that into practice? How do we put the tools in place for you to be able to manage those things successfully?

Going back to the first point we talked about, resiliency, and putting the DR plan into action, where if something were to go down, your business will continue to operate from a different coast. That's our typical plan. It's borrowed heavily from the Microsoft cloud adoption framework, but we have updated it based on what we have seen with other customers. We have used it successfully with nonprofits, and other enterprise customers.

Josh Dougherty (09:01):

Thanks so much, Rakesh. I am excited about the opportunities nonprofits have. If you're a nonprofit watching this, and you're interested in investing in app mod, or taking the next step into moving to the cloud, I encourage you to get in touch with Redapt on the site. You can come to redapt.com and click the contact desk button and one of the experts will get in touch. Thank you for joining us today and thank you, Rakesh and Michael, for your time.

Rakesh Anantharaman (09:34):

Thanks, Josh. 

Michael Kimbro (09:37):

Thank you, Josh.