Managing software technical debt during a cloud migration

In the fast-evolving world of software where developers face the twin challenges of complexity and agility, AI-powered developer tools can turn a cloud migration to a strategic advantage from the perspective of technical debt. Coding tools such as Amazon Q Developer can accelerate modernization by automating code analysis, refactoring, and conversion, suggesting improvements, documentation, and adoption of cloud-native best practices.

For revenue growth, coding assistants address the talent and knowledge bottlenecks that typically constrain development capacity. They democratize expertise across teams, and accelerate onboarding of new developers. By automating repetitive coding tasks and providing real-time guidance on best practices, developer teams can invest their time and resources on higher-value innovation.

A leading software company in Latin America, Novacomp, used Amazon Q Developer upgrade a project with more than 10,000 lines of Java code in 50 minutes rather than an estimated 3 weeks. The company also simplified everyday tasks for developers, reduced its technical debt by 60 percent on average, and helped customers to significantly improve their security posture and save associated costs.

In the realm of cloud migration, security and compliance are paramount concerns, especially for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers. As organizations transition to the cloud, they must not only manage technical debt but also address stringent security standards and regulatory requirements. Compliance with security and privacy standards serves as a testament to the reliability and trustworthiness of a SaaS solution, particularly in handling sensitive customer data. It's crucial to understand that compliance is not just about meeting legal requirements; it's a strategic advantage that can open doors to new markets, build customer trust, and mitigate risks.

The AWS Shared Responsibility Model provides a framework for understanding security and compliance responsibilities in the cloud, with some controls inherited from AWS, some shared, and others falling squarely on the SaaS provider. By prioritizing security and compliance from the outset, SaaS providers can not only reduce technical debt but also create a solid foundation for sustainable growth and customer trust in the cloud environment.

Application modernization plays a pivotal role in managing technical debt during cloud migration, offering organizations the opportunity to revamp their existing applications for enhanced cloud performance. A very common approach is to transform an application built with a monolithic architecture into microservices, by carefully separating various functional units into smaller services that can be managed and operationally scaled independent of each other.

Prioritizing high-impact applications can help achieve infrastructure cost reduction, faster feature rollout, and improved performance and reliability. Additionally, the modernization journey includes strengthening security measures through integrated cloud security features and updating outdated dependencies with the help of AI-powered tools. By taking this strategic approach to application modernization during cloud migration, organizations can establish a solid foundation for continuous innovation in the cloud environment.

Software customers such as Miro have gained increased velocity, better efficiencies, and enhanced developer productivity by modernizing their architecture to serverless containers. ISVs in SaaS space such as Smartsheet have achieved deployment efficiencies and reduced costs using AWS serverless technologies.

Operational excellence is about monitoring software systems to deliver business value while continuously improving processes and procedures. It emerges as a critical factor in managing and reducing technical debt during the cloud migration journey. As organizations transition their software and infrastructure to the cloud, they gain a unique opportunity to reimagine their operational practices, leading to improved efficiency, reliability, and scalability.

Focusing on automating changes, responding to events, and defining standards to manage daily operations, translates to more reliable revenue operations, reduced costs, and faster time-to-market for new initiatives through streamlined processes and fewer system disruptions. This automation accelerates development and deployment processes while minimizing human errors that can accumulate as technical debt over time. Cloud elasticity also enables efficient resource allocation through auto-scaling capabilities, ensuring applications have necessary resources during peak times while scaling down during low-demand periods. By adopting operational excellence, customers such as Salesforce have reduced data processing times by more than 90% and saved over USD $1M in monthly costs.

While these technical capabilities are crucial, successful cloud adoption equally depends on having the right organizational structure and team culture to leverage them effectively. Leading this cultural transformation is Amazon, whose approach to achieving operational excellence in the cloud is exemplified by their widespread adoption of "Two-Pizza Teams." This concept, pioneered by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, refers to small, agile teams that are no larger than what two pizzas can feed—typically 6 to 10 people. Two-Pizza teams are given significant autonomy and are responsible for the full lifecycle of their products or services. This structure allows teams to move quickly, experiment freely, and respond rapidly to challenges or opportunities. More importantly, these teams have proven instrumental in establishing a culture of operational excellence that actively prevents the accumulation of future technical debt.

Agentic AI is a paradigm for autonomous planning, reasoning, and execution of complex tasks such as remediating inefficient code, and refactoring architecture patterns that could affect performance during peak sales seasons. The various specialized AI agents work in tandem through an workflow orchestration mechanism which consolidates the the output of the subtasks into a single response to the user. Gartner identifies it as the most strategic trend slated to shape the future. The number of enterprises currently using generative AI plan to move deploy AI agents is estimated to double by 2027. Accenture calls generative AI a source of tech debt as well as a tool to remediate tech debt, recommending to create a balance by building a digital core.

AWS, with its breadth and depth of data, AI, and governance services, provides a solid foundation for building that digital core. Amazon Bedrock offers a suite of large language models (LLMs) from leading players in the space as well as the necessary toolset to customize those models and build agentic workflows with appropriate guardrails. AWS is partnering with leading players in this space such as CrewAI to support business transformation by helping with legacy code modernization, back office automation, and operational excellence.

The cloud migration process, when approached strategically, becomes more than just a technological shift—it's a business transformation initiative. However, it's crucial to remember that managing technical debt is an ongoing process. As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, organizations must remain vigilant and proactive. The tools and strategies discussed here—from AI-powered development assistants to cloud-native architectures and advanced security frameworks—provide a robust toolkit for continuous improvement and adaptation. Ultimately, the successful management of technical debt during cloud migration is not just about addressing immediate challenges. It's about creating a flexible, resilient infrastructure that can support innovation and growth for years to come. By embracing these principles and technologies, software companies can position themselves at the forefront of their industries, ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly digital future. Learn more about what AWS can do for your software or technology company at the AWS ISV website.