Microsoft has unveiled AppCAT, an Azure Migrate tool intended to assist users in migrating their on-premises .NET applications to the company’s Azure cloud.
Introduced January 3, the Azure Migrate application and code assessment tool for .NET, or AppCAT for short, lets users assess .NET source code, binaries, and configurations of an application to find potential issues and opportunities when moving a .NET application to Azure. The tool helps discover issues an application might have when ported to Azure and improves performance, security, and scalability by suggesting modern, cloud-native solutions, Microsoft said.
Once an analysis is run, AppCAT will report things to check or change to ensure that an application works properly after it has been moved from on-premises to Azure. Available as either a Visual Studio extension or as a .NET CLI tool, AppCAT discovers application technology usage through static analysis of code and dependencies. Microsoft has posted instructions for the CLI tool. Both the CLI tool and Visual Studio extension allow users to save the results of the analysis in HTML, CSV, and JSON formats.
With AppCAT, users can jump to a line requiring attention, address issues, mark them as fixed and save the current state. The tool provides an estimate of how much effort each issue will take to fix including estimates for components of apps and projects. Plans call for infusing the tool with AI capabilities and adding integration with Copilot AI assistance. Also planned is a more curated assessment based on the chosen Azure target.
Users can provide feedback on AppCAT via the Visual Studio feedback channel.