Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Mondayannounced an update to AWS Transform, an agentic artificial intelligence (AI) service for migrating and modernising Windows .NET applications, VMware systems and mainframes.
Speaking at the company’s re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Asa Kalavade, VP of migrations and modernisation at AWS, said customers want to move legacy workloads to the cloud to get ready for AI, modernise their applications, and save on licensing costs.
AWS Transform can be used for three workloads. Firstly, it helps move virtual machines to the cloud and modernises on-premises infrastructure in the cloud. It also helps with mainframe modernisation. The third workload concerns Windows applications.
“Customers told us they wanted to get off their legacy monolithic stacks, and move to more cloud-native applications. So, we introduced the ability to modernise your .NET applications,” said Kalavade.
The Transform agents start by analysing a company’s Windows stack and then proposes a modernisation plan across all layers. Once approved, the agent transforms the application, user interface framework, database and operating system to open source alternatives, and will document the process.
Kalavade said if a company was running VMware or another hypervisor on-premises, it would first be mapped to a target application. Virtual machine (VMs) could also be moved into containers. “It’s not just about moving the VMs. The networking and security also need to be translated.”
Since the service was launched in May, hundreds of customers had used it to process over a billion lines of mainframe code, and saved over 800 000 hours of manual coding, Kalavade said.
She noted there were challenges ahead. “Java versions keep changing, and there are complex legacy applications that were written years ago and the developers may have retired and there’s no documentation. These applications take up a lot of effort for the organisation.
“Almost 30% of an organisation’s IT budget and resources get spent on these modernisation projects,” she said, referring to this as “tech debt”.
Transform has been released in tranches throughout 2025; first, in May, for mainframes, followed by support for .NET and VMware workloads. The update on Monday added agentic AI capabilities.
The Thomson Reuters media company used the service to move from Windows to Red Hat Linux to improve performance and lower costs. It migrated 1.5 million lines of code a month, seeing 30% lower costs.
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