AWS recently announced the public preview of new generative AI-powered transformation capabilities within Amazon Q Developer, aimed at accelerating the modernization of .NET Framework applications to cross-platform .NET. According to the company, these capabilities enable developers to port their Windows-based .NET applications to Linux-ready cross-platform .NET up to four times faster than traditional methods, potentially reducing licensing costs by up to 40%.
Amazon Q Developer’s transformation features allow developers to interact using natural language to specify high-level transformation objectives and connect to source code repositories. The tool assesses application code to identify .NET versions, supported project types, and dependencies, then ports the code and accompanying unit tests to cross-platform .NET. This process facilitates collaborative review and adjustment, providing detailed logs to support compliance objectives.
AWS aimed to make the new functionality very user-friendly. Developers must click the “Transform” button within their IDE in the AWS Toolkit and select the file they wish to modernize. Amazon Q takes care of the rest. It deploys agents to identify which components need upgrading. The agents then create a plan, suggest necessary fixes, and execute the plan. This process includes upgrading existing code and configuration files and generating new files. If a build fails, the agents automatically fix the errors. The developer receives a summary of the changes made at the end of the process.
(Source: AWS News blog post)
Steve Leung, a senior software engineer, wrote in a LinkedIn post:
At re:Invent 2024, it was announced that Amazon Q can take code written in the older .NET Framework ( < v4 ) and rewrite/uplift to the latest .NET core using generative AI.
This porting action could be painful or done manually without this new feature.
By porting your .NET applications from .NET Framework to cross-platform .NET Core, you can migrate from Windows to Linux. As a result, you can not only take advantage of the latest innovations in the .NET platform, but you can also reduce your Microsoft licensing spend.
And Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec, vice president of technology at AWS, said in a press release:
Amazon Q significantly speeds up application transformation projects with agents that can autonomously complete some of the most labor-intensive tasks, such as analyzing, planning, code generation, and testing. This saves customers time and money and helps them realize the full value of the cloud.
More details on the transformation capabilities of Amazon Developer Q are available on the documentation pages.
