Things to Consider Before Migrating Old .NET Applications to Cloud
Migrating a legacy .NET application to the cloud can unlock powerful capabilities — scalability, resilience, built-in monitoring, and more. But moving to Azure without proper preparation is a recipe for costly surprises. In this episode, Jonah Andersson — Microsoft MVP for Azure and software engineer at Forefront Consulting Sweden — shares the real story of a .NET migration that turned into a hard-won lesson.
What Went Wrong (and Why)
The challenges Jonah encountered weren’t Azure problems — they were preparation problems. Key issues included:
- Unresolved technical debt: Old codebases carry accumulated decisions that made sense at the time but become liabilities when transplanted to a cloud environment.
- Database complexity: Tightly coupled database schemas and undocumented stored procedures caused significant friction during migration.
- Organisational readiness: Teams need to be aligned on goals, ownership, and cloud operating models before a migration begins — not after.
What to Address Before You Migrate
Jonah recommends a structured approach before any cloud migration:
- Define your strategy first: Begin with the end in mind. Know what success looks like in the cloud and work backwards from there.
- Fix technical debt before migrating: Address database schema issues, circular dependencies, and legacy coupling before a single service moves to the cloud.
- Move to modern .NET: Target .NET (formerly .NET Core) and cross-platform frameworks that are purpose-built for cloud-native workloads.
- Leverage cloud observability from day one: Tools like Azure Application Insights give you visibility into application behaviour that on-premises monitoring simply cannot match.
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