Decide what happens to a legacy application before you move it
A free thirty-minute call with the Emerging Technology practice. You leave knowing which path fits each application, whether that’s moving it as it is, onto Azure managed services, or rebuilding it, and what has to happen first.
- Enterprise software since 1994
- Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider
- CISSP and CISA certified security leadership
- Fortune 500 clients across North America
Most migrations start with the wrong question
The question usually asked is how to get an application to Azure. The one that matters comes first: should it move as it is, move onto managed services, or be rebuilt? Answer that per application and the plan follows. Answer it once for the whole estate and you pay for it twice.
It gets harder when the people who built the system are gone, the documentation stopped years ago, and the business can’t take an outage to find out what the code does.
Thirty minutes, one honest read
The assessment is a thirty-minute conversation with Eddie Hudson, who runs Winmill’s Emerging Technology practice. You describe the application, what it runs on, who depends on it, and what’s pushing you to move it. You leave with a clear read on which path fits and what has to change first.
It needs no access to your code or your systems, and it costs nothing. If there’s a project worth doing, we’ll propose one. If the honest answer is to leave the application where it is for now, we’ll tell you that instead.
Six things we look at
What it does and who depends on it
The business process it carries, the people and systems that call it, and how much downtime the business can actually absorb.
The code and the platform under it
.NET Framework, PHP, COBOL, or something older. What it runs on today, what’s out of support, and what nobody on staff can change safely anymore.
Data and integrations
Where the data lives, what else reads and writes it, and which integrations break if the application moves first.
Identity and access
How users sign in today, whether that maps cleanly to Microsoft Entra ID, and what a move to Azure changes about who can reach the system.
The right path for each application
Rehost, replatform onto Azure managed services such as App Service or Azure Container Apps, or rearchitect. We make the call application by application, not for the estate as a whole.
What has to happen first
The prerequisites. Usually untangling the data, sometimes identity, occasionally a dependency nobody has mapped.
Three things you leave with
A clear read on the application
Not a proposal. Eddie tells you which path fits, what it will take, and why, in the call itself.
A named next step
If there is one, it has a shape you can approve: a migration roadmap, a rebuild, or a move from Kubernetes to Azure Container Apps.
An honest no when it’s a no
Sometimes the right answer is to stabilize the application where it is and migrate later. We say that in the assessment rather than after you’ve paid for a phase.
How this stays useful
It isn’t a paid discovery phase
The assessment costs nothing and carries no obligation. When there’s a project worth doing, we’ll propose it. When nothing we sell fits, we’ll say so.
Nothing leaves your environment
The assessment is a conversation. It needs no access to your code, your data, or your tenancy.
Security is in-house
Penetration testing and application security are Winmill practices, so what a migration exposes gets read by people who test systems for a living.
Where it usually goes next
Most of it can move or be replatformed
A written roadmap that decides each application’s path, then the migration itself. See Cloud Engineering.
It already runs in containers
Moving off AKS or self-managed Kubernetes to a platform with far less to operate. See AKS to Azure Container Apps.
It needs to be rebuilt
Rebuilt without interrupting the business, including systems whose original developers are long gone. See Custom Software Development, or read how a financial services firm retired PHP and COBOL on Azure.
Frequently asked questions
Is the assessment really free?
Yes. It’s a thirty-minute call, and there’s no charge and no obligation. Paid work starts only if you approve a scoped next step.
Do you need access to our code or systems?
No. Nothing connects to your environment. The assessment works from what your team describes and what you choose to show.
Who should be in the room?
Whoever owns the application and whoever owns the business process it supports. A platform or infrastructure lead helps when the question involves Azure architecture.
What if we aren’t on Azure yet?
That’s the usual starting point. The assessment covers where the application should land as well as how it gets there.
Can you look at more than one application?
Yes. Bring the most urgent one and name the others. If the estate needs a portfolio view, that becomes roadmap work, scoped and approved before it starts.
How is this different from the AI Readiness Assessment?
The AI Readiness Assessment asks where AI fits in your data and workloads. This one asks what should happen to a specific application. If adding AI is part of the reason to move it, say so and we’ll cover both in the same call.
Thirty minutes, and a path for the application
Book the assessment with Eddie Hudson, who runs Winmill’s Emerging Technology practice and takes these calls himself.