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Application Modernisation

Scope. Canonical home for the modernisation programme angle — VMware Engine as lift-and-shift landing zone, replatform via the application catalogue, managed-service substitution, and migration tooling. Underlying capabilities live in their canonical homes (data, networking, devsecops, serverless).

What this repo uniquely brings to modernisation​

1. Lift-and-shift via VMware Engine (canonical)​

modules/VMware_Engine/ plus modules/VMware_Engine/LAB_GUIDE.md ("Migrate to Virtual Machines v5 — Lab Guide") provides a turnkey landing zone:

  • Enables required GCP APIs.
  • Creates the VMware Engine Network and Private Cloud.
  • Configures VPC Network Peering (GCVE ↔ your VPC).
  • Provisions default firewall rules.
  • Deploys a Windows Server 2022 jump host.
  • Resets vCenter solution user credentials.

The canonical "Phase 1" — get the existing VMware estate into Google Cloud without refactoring.

2. Replatform via the application catalogue (cross-ref)​

Once on GCP, the catalogue (canonical in outcomes/developer_productivity.md) replaces hand-rolled VM stacks with managed, scale-to-zero or auto-scaled containers — without rewriting the application:

Legacy stackModernised module
WordPress on a VM with MySQLWordpress_CloudRun / Wordpress_GKE + Cloud SQL
Wiki / knowledge baseWikijs_CloudRun / Wikijs_GKE + Cloud SQL
Odoo ERPOdoo_CloudRun / Odoo_GKE + Cloud SQL
Moodle LMSMoodle_CloudRun / Moodle_GKE + Cloud SQL + Filestore
OpenEMR healthcareOpenEMR_* + Cloud SQL
Cyclos bankingCyclos_*
Ghost bloggingGhost_*
Strapi headless CMSStrapi_*

3. Managed-service substitution​

Modernisation replaces self-hosted dependencies with managed equivalents:

Self-hostedManaged replacementCanonical home
MySQL/PostgreSQL on a VMCloud SQL (private IP, PITR, HA, CMEK)capabilities/data_and_databases.md
Redis on a VMMemorystorecapabilities/data_and_databases.md
NFS server on a VMFilestorecapabilities/data_and_databases.md
Self-hosted Docker registryArtifact Registrypractices/cicd.md
Self-hosted CI/CD (Jenkins)Cloud Buildpractices/cicd.md
Self-hosted secrets vaultSecret Managerpractices/devsecops.md
Self-hosted observability stackCloud Monitoring + Loggingcapabilities/observability.md
VPN for admin accessIdentity-Aware Proxypractices/devsecops.md

4. Refactor to serverless (cross-ref)​

Cloud Run + GKE Autopilot remove the last vestiges of pre-provisioned compute. Runtime mechanics canonical in capabilities/serverless.md.

5. Data migration tooling (cross-ref)​

export-backup.sh, import-gcs-backup.sh, import-gdrive-backup.sh plus the per-app db-init.sh and install-{mysql-plugins,postgres-extensions}.sh scripts handle the data-migration cutover. Canonical in capabilities/disaster_recovery.md and capabilities/data_and_databases.md.

6. Hybrid-during-migration support​

  • VMware Engine keeps the legacy estate reachable from GCP-native services.
  • Workload Identity Federation federates external identities (canonical in practices/devsecops.md).
  • VPN/Interconnect-friendly VPC topology — canonical in capabilities/networking.md.

7. Security uplift as part of modernisation (cross-ref)​

Modernisation is also a chance to fix security: private DB IP, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, Cloud Armor, CMEK appear automatically in modernised deployments. Canonical in practices/devsecops.md.

8. Programme-level documentation​

  • MODERNIZATION_IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md — the broader programme view.
  • MODERNIZATION_REVIEW.md — review checklist.
  • REFACTORING_ANALYSIS.md — architectural refactoring rationale (e.g., extracting App_Common sub-modules).
  • ITEMIZED_PROPOSAL.md, PROPOSAL_DRAFT.md — partner-facing proposal templates.
  • articles/cyclos-business-overview.md, cyclos-technical-deep-dive.md — published case study.

9. Quantified outcomes (cross-ref)​

95% faster provisioning, 95% maintenance reduction, 30–50% compute/egress savings via CDN — canonical in outcomes/developer_productivity.md §4.

Cross-references​