Sort a portfolio into the six dispositions

short · 35 min · Objective 2.3

Task

Take a portfolio of twelve workloads and assign each a disposition, then check the shape of the result. A portfolio where everything is refactored is not a plan, and a portfolio where nothing is retired has not looked properly.

Steps

  1. List the twelve in lab/portfolio.csv with columns workload,age,criticality,remaining_life,constraint,disposition,reason.
  2. Assign a disposition to each using the lesson's order: remaining life first, then hard constraints, then commodity, then architecture.
  3. Ensure at least one RETIRE and at least one REPURCHASE appear, and justify both -- these are the two dispositions people forget, and discovery typically finds 10 to 20 percent that can simply be switched off.
  4. Count the dispositions and compare the shape against a realistic one: a few retired, a few repurchased, most replatformed or rehosted, a small number refactored, a handful retained.
  5. Order the portfolio into migration waves, and write the rule you used to decide which workloads must move together.

Verify

awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=7 {n++} END {print n" workload(s)"}' lab/portfolio.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 {print tolower($6)}' lab/portfolio.csv | sort | uniq -c
awk -F, 'NR>1 && tolower($6) ~ /refactor/ {n++} END {print n" refactor(s)"}' lab/portfolio.csv

Twelve workloads, at least four distinct dispositions, and refactor should be a small minority. More than a third refactored describes a multi-year programme rather than a migration.

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