For years, enterprise IT leaders have struggled with a silent killer of innovation: the application modernization bottleneck. This bottleneck isn’t caused by a lack of will, but a lack of objective data. Teams are paralyzed by the sheer volume of code they need to assess, unsure where to start or which applications pose the greatest risk—or hold the greatest value—if modernized.
The reality is that most production systems today are quietly running on unpatched, aging software, and every single day businesses bet their reputations on that software holding up. The process of manual audit, analysis, and migration has simply been too slow to keep up with the pace of business, often leading teams into the trap of “rewrite fantasies” that never materialize.
With VMware Tanzu Platform 10.3, we are making a new reality possible.
The new app portfolio assessment and onboarding capabilities in Tanzu Platform transform modernization from a risky, manual audit into a programmatic, continuous engineering practice. This provides platform engineering teams with the full-stack insights and strategy they need to build a data-driven modernization roadmap at enterprise scale, while giving developers the precise, actionable guidance to refactor with confidence.
Phase 1: Visibility and strategy at scale (Discovery)
To execute a modernization shift at scale, organizations need more than just tools; they need a complete picture of their portfolio of applications. Tanzu Platform 10.3 provides a comprehensive view of your application estate, surfacing legacy-stack risk and identifying the best candidates for migration;
- Portfolio assessments – The platform scans your application repositories, analyzing them across facets of technical debt, business criticality, and language to combine the technical assessment with the business context, enabling a complete view of the portfolio. It identifies specific risks, such as unpatched dependencies or unsupported frameworks that are often hidden in the “maintenance tax” of production environments or usage of a legacy tech stack that is costing additional license fees.
- Data-driven roadmap – Platform engineers can prioritize workloads based on objective metrics. By identifying applications that are candidates for modernization early, teams can eliminate latent security risks before they become incidents.
- The result – A clear path to modernization that optimizes resource allocation, aligned with business impact that materially strengthens the organization’s security posture.
The new application suitability assessment enables application portfolio discovery, modernization, optimization and onboarding of apps to Tanzu Platform.
Phase 2: Migration and modernization
At the heart of the 10.3 release are capabilities that fundamentally change the ROI equation of software. Instead of disruptive, “heroic,” one-off upgrades, Tanzu Platform enables continuous upgrades, migration, and modernization:
- Intelligent, automated modernization (especially for Java/Spring) – Tanzu Platform transforms complex challenges like upgrading older Spring Boot versions into a streamlined, automated process. Using intelligent analysis—available via the cf repo apply-upgrade-plan CLI command—the platform automatically generates pull requests for incremental dependency upgrades, resolving complex dependency conflicts simultaneously, and even applying necessary code changes (e.g., automatically changing use of FileAppender to ConsoleAppender to ensure logs are not lost when a containerized app is restarted).
- Orchestrated, incremental upgrades – Rather than a risky, all-at-once rewrite, changes are applied gradually. The platform’s analysis orchestrates upgrades across multiple, dependent repositories in the correct sequence, preventing conflicts and reducing risk. This helps keep code reviews manageable and helps maintain stability by validating each step with existing automation.
- Business value – By turning maintenance into a competitive advantage instead of a burden, teams can focus on delivering features that provide business value rather than firefighting outdated builds. Continuous upgrades mean your applications are always “ready to release,” and they help future-proof your estate against evolving threats.
Phase 3: Seamless onboarding to production
Modernization isn’t complete until the application is running securely in production. Tanzu Platform 10.3 provides expanded onboarding guidance and platform-provided automation to bridge the gap from “technical debt” to “modernized code” and finally to “running service.”
- Multi-runtime support – Onboarding guidance is now expanded beyond Spring to include Java, .NET, GraalVM, NodeJS, and Python apps.
- Platform-provided automation – By leveraging the foundation vending and service publishing capabilities of Tanzu Platform 10.3, apps can be modernized and onboarded with a CLI command to governed foundations with consistent security policies and integrated observability.
- Operational efficiency – The result is a modernized application that benefits from the platform’s “golden path,” boosting application resiliency and simplifying lifecycle management.
Turning maintenance into advantage
Tanzu Platform 10.3 is more than a set of tools; it is a response to the demands of the AI-native enterprise. By embracing continuous modernization and application security as a core engineering practice, organizations can move past the “rewrite fantasy” and build applications that stay maintainable without heroics.
The result is a more resilient, secure, and efficient application portfolio that allows you to focus on innovation—not just survival.
Ready to see how Tanzu Platform 10.3 can accelerate your application velocity?
Catch the vision: Watch the replay of our Tanzu keynote from VMware Explore, Refactoring the ROI of Software: Continuous Modernization with Tanzu Platform, to see stories from the frontlines.
Explore the features: Dive deeper into the technical specifications and documentation for the full Tanzu Platform 10.3 release notes.
Connect with experts: Visit the official Tanzu Platform product page to learn more about Tanzu Platform or get started with a hands-on demo.
