Application modernisation cloud platform makes the impossible, possible

Around this time last year, I was in London to cover off an event on platform migration for Rimo3, which I duly covered in this blog back then.

https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Networks-Generation/Be-Prepared-For-Infrastructure-Change

Amazing what can change in a year! So, by chance, same vendor – Rimo3 – engages with me again to host a mini-debate around its launch of the application modernization platform, Rimo3 Cloud, into the US market, but which is – naturally – equally relevant to the UK and those foreign bits that we now have to call Europe, as if it’s a separate entity (but I won’t get started on that) …   

The full interview can be seen here:

https://rimo3.com/blog/rimo3-to-expand-north-america-reach-and-operations

Essentially it focuses on key elements of the changing world of applications and their underlying platforms, notably the broad adoption of what was once more of a niche option – known as the thin client – i.e., the virtual desktop. While there is no doubt that, with WVD in Windows 10, Microsoft has been massively responsible for the wider engagement with the virtual desktop, clearly VMware has built up a huge customer base and Citrix users are still there aplenty.

The challenge for Rimo3, then, in enabling applications to be moved over and between platforms, is in ensuring the process is the same, regardless of the platform. As a cloud-based service, it enables a far easier migration and modernisation of applications, in that it will understand and test any application workloads, regardless of how those applications are delivered to the end user. This is covered off in the video by the company’s “newly acquired” VP of Biz Dev, Eric Serno, who is joined on the video panel by President & CEO Mike Welling and CTO Samit Halvadia, who further expands on the working methodologies. Having worked with Samit, and especially Mike, for more years than I care to remember, I can promise to Eric that he is in safe hands!

Key to the methodology is that the process of modernising applications keeps the same basic step process:

• Access the application to see if it will work on your desired platform
• Migrate the application – Modernize the applications that are suitable candidates for MSIX
• Deploy the application and provide ongoing management post deployment

In the video, Mike talks about his company’s huge experience in this area of migration and modernization; certainly, I’ve worked with him on various test and report projects over and around the past 15 years, and – while the concept remains the same – the challenge simply gets ever harder; more applications, more platforms. To its credit, Rimo3 is seeing great customer feedback – high success of conversion and remediation rates with Microsoft users, based around Rimo3 Cloud’s automated test process (the company claims around 18 minutes per application), which bodes well for the essential scalability of the solution.

Eric further talks about the impact of hugely significant adoption of the remote workforce, care of the reasons why this was a virtual. remote debate and not a physically attended one! It means that the focus on customers modernising their VDI infrastructure has heightened, given then perfect fit between remote working and the virtual desktop. And it is a far from trivial migration – there were numerous examples of casualties in the early days of the first lockdown in the UK alone, with downtime and offline applications and supporting services widely reported.

The video concludes with the panel defining what will be a successful 12 months for Rimo3 Cloud. My personal takeaways from the discussions were:

• Firstly, giving companies a choice in their workplace strategy as they move forward, but providing a consistent way of managing that transformation. And transformation isn’t a nice to have – it’s the only way to survive.
• Secondly; that – as a fundamental part of that transformation – key is being able to massively accelerate the process of application migration and problem remediation; automation essentially makes the impossible, possible.
• Finally: the modern IT world is bigger than any single vendor or service supplier; it’s therefore essential that vendors work together – enhancing each other’s offering; basically, making what is described as the best, even better. In each case, the customer wins out.

This is clearly an ongoing “watch this space” scenario, so I will be returning to the subject matter within this blog but, meantime, tune in to the video…