Cloud and Application Modernization

Articles

Technical articles and architecture insights on cloud migration, modernization strategy, legacy transformation and enterprise IT.

What Is an AI Agent? A Field Definition and Five Common Patterns
What Is an AI Agent? A Field Definition and Five Common Patterns

Everyone is building “agents” now. But ask five engineers what an agent actually is and you’ll get six answers. I’ve spent the last year working on agentic systems — from industrial diagnostic agents to workflow …

Event Storming for Complex Domains: A Practitioner's Field Guide
Event Storming for Complex Domains: A Practitioner's Field Guide

The hardest part of building software is not writing code. It’s understanding what to build. I’ve facilitated dozens of workshops with enterprise teams — some building new products, some untangling decades of legacy processes. …

Technical Speaking: Common Messaging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Technical Speaking: Common Messaging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

After delivering dozens of technical talks — from 50-person meetups to 2000-seat conference keynotes — I have made every messaging mistake in the book. Some were recoverable. Some resulted in blog posts quoting me wildly out of context. One …

Modernizing PowerBuilder Applications: Strategies for the Cloud Era
Modernizing PowerBuilder Applications: Strategies for the Cloud Era

PowerBuilder applications are the cockroaches of enterprise software. I do not mean that disparagingly — they survive everything. Economic downturns, technology shifts, organizational restructuring, multiple failed “rip and …

Monitoring Hybrid VPN Connectivity Between Azure and AWS
Monitoring Hybrid VPN Connectivity Between Azure and AWS

Hybrid cloud architectures connecting Azure and AWS through site-to-site VPN tunnels are increasingly common. What is far less common is proper monitoring of those tunnels. Most teams configure the VPN, verify it works once, and then …

How to build an AI-powered diagnostic agent for industrial equipment
How to build an AI-powered diagnostic agent for industrial equipment

When a machine shows symptoms, technicians need to figure out the root cause and the best way to fix it. Today, this knowledge lives in the heads of experienced engineers and is scattered across thousands of unstructured service reports of …

Why RTO explodes when architecture complexity grows
Why RTO explodes when architecture complexity grows

For years, I have been working on software and architecture modernization. Mostly existing systems. Sometimes brand new products. This week made one thing painfully clear: RTO is not an operational problem. It is an architectural one.