Software company Mavim gives their application a second life with Windows Containers
Software company Mavim has been a partner and customer of Intercept for many years. Since 1990, Mavim has been developing and delivering software that enables organizations to adapt to continuously changing circumstances quickly. As many software companies experience, modernizing existing, successful, and widely used solutions is challenging.
The latest generation of software is, of course, cloud-native, but products that are already further along in the product lifecycle deserve a more innovative way than rewriting to take advantage of the latest cloud solutions. By containerizing (using Docker) the existing software and deploying Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for scalable management of customer environments, Mavim accelerated and improved its current Azure Web App environment, a Windows-based .NET solution.
Second lifecycle for a .NET Framework Windows app with AKS
CTO Rinie Huijgen enthusiastically tells us how the team at Intercept started with the challenge: "The goal was to give the existing app a boost. We converted the .NET-based Windows web app from Mavim to a Docker container hosted on AKS. Through the smart use of DevOps pipelines and Azure Functions, the entire deployment and management were automated. In this way, we gave the app a serious boost without partially rewriting the app to .NET Core (5). The results: the app is now 80% faster at the same cost, and the availability is a lot better. Thus, we host smarter, and they can continue with their existing app."
Broad application of AKS
"There are millions of Windows and Linux-based applications that can't simply be ported to managed code. In that case, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a solution," explains Azure Architect and MVP Richard Hooper. He sees the opportunities of AKS for transforming existing applications, but also as an application for new apps. Richard: "Because of the wide application of containers, both in Windows and Linux, many companies can make use of them. Moreover, AKS is constantly evolving, which means that new features are added all the time."
The experience of Mavim
COO Bram Hirsch: "A few years ago, we jointly embarked on a path to hyper-scale in the Azure Cloud with Intercept. Together, we have reached a point where our customers collaborate more and more internationally on our platform. Intercept's AKS solution has allowed us to roll out upgrades and spin up Azure regions more easily in addition to performance improvements."
Benefits of AKS
AKS allows you to store each service of your organization in a separate container. This makes your system stable and flexible. More benefits of AKS are:
- Speed: it is possible to develop and implement new components and functions faster. You can also react more quickly to developed innovations.
- Scalability is achieved by preferring decoupled architectures. Each component is separated from other components by defined APIs and service load balancers in a decoupled architecture.
- Hybrid Cloud: by building your infrastructure on Kubernetes, you ensure that the effort you put into building, deploying, and managing your application is easily portable to other environments.
- Efficiency Kubernetes aggregates containers into Pods. Pods can be assigned properties such as storage, networking, and scheduling. Kubernetes then looks at the available memory and processor usage of each node and chooses the best distribution for you. This ensures that the nodes of the Kubernetes cluster are used optimally.
Starting with AKS containers yourself?
Enthusiastic about the possibilities to modernize your legacy Windows or Linux-based app with AKS? Based on an intake, Intercept can see where your AKS needs lie. We help you with the whole lifecycle, from transforming to automating to monitoring. Want to start at the beginning? Then we'll help you set up a Cloud Design. Already familiar with Azure and want to get started in a targeted way? Then Managed AKS Design is for you.