This AWS re:Invent 2023 session explores application modernization and microservices, featuring insights from AWS customer Affinidi. The presenters discuss the benefits of microservices architecture, including increased agility, faster innovation, and improved delivery of customer features. They introduce best practices, design patterns, and AWS Migration Hub Refactor Spaces, a purpose-built service for implementing the strangler fig pattern. Affinidi shares their success story of moving to microservices, which resulted in a 50% reduction in software development effort, 25% cost reduction, and significantly reduced service setup time. The session covers key concepts like domain-driven design, multi-account strategies, and incremental refactoring approaches. It emphasizes the importance of reducing cognitive load on developers and standardizing processes to achieve greater agility and innovation in application development.