Modernization & Cloud articles
Practical writing on building and shipping software: what it costs, how to buy it, and how to get it right. From the engineers who do the work.
Legacy System Integration Services: Audit the Seam
Audit legacy system integration services for supportability, semantics, write control, change tolerance, operating cost, and retirement.
Cloud Strategy Consulting: Fit and Non-Fit Guide
Use this fit scorecard to decide when cloud strategy consulting is warranted, what it should deliver, and when a focused engineering task is enough.
Cloud Managed Services Pricing: The Fee on Top of Your Bill
Managed cloud pricing is a fee layered on your AWS or Azure bill. The models, what percentage-of-spend really costs you, and which one punishes optimization.
VMware Migration Cost After Broadcom: Stay, Renegotiate, or Move
What changed in VMware licensing under Broadcom, why renewal quotes jumped, and how to cost a migration to Hyper-V, Proxmox, Nutanix, or cloud against staying.
Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 End of Support: Your Three Real Options
Exchange 2016 and 2019 left support in October 2025. Microsoft says paid ESU ends for good in October 2026. The three upgrade paths and how to sequence them.
Legacy Application Modernization Services: Buy the Assessment First
What legacy application modernization services should deliver before code changes: a workload inventory, one decision per app, proof tests, and a phased exit plan.
Office 2019 End of Support: What It Means and What to Do Now
Office 2019 end of life was October 14, 2025. What stopped, the lifecycle math nobody checked, three costed options, and who should still buy a perpetual license.
Windows Server 2012 R2 End of Life: What to Do Before October 2026
Windows Server 2012 R2 end of life was October 10, 2023. The final ESU year ends October 13, 2026, and year three can't be bought without paying for years one and two.
The Cost of Technical Debt: What It Actually Costs You
Technical debt eats 20-40% of your tech estate value (McKinsey) and a chunk of dev capacity. Here's how to price it and decide what to fix.
Internal Developer Platform: Do You Need One (Build vs Buy)?
An internal developer platform pays off past ~4 product teams. Gartner: 80% of large orgs run platform teams by 2026. Build (Backstage) vs buy (Port, Humanitec).
SRE vs DevOps: Which One Your Company Needs First
SRE vs DevOps explained: DevOps is a practice, SRE is Google's version with SLOs and error budgets. Under 30 engineers, you likely need neither team.
Azure vs AWS Cloud Migration: Which to Pick, and Why
Azure vs AWS cloud migration decision guide: your Microsoft estate, egress at $0.087 vs $0.09/GB, AWS MAP vs Azure Migrate, and a which-shop-picks-which matrix.