Transition Type Recommendations (6R)

Tidal Accelerator can recommend a transition type for each application: a 6R-style disposition such as rehost, replatform, refactor, or retire, once enough assessment evidence exists in your project or portfolio.

This is saved to the application record as ‘Recommended Transition Type’. It is produced by Accelerator’s transition type recommendation engine and is distinct from the transition type you choose yourself on the application Migration Plan.

Looking for cloud instance (VM to EC2 or Azure VM) sizing instead? See Cloud Instance Recommendations.

What it is

After you gather assessment data for applications in a project, Accelerator scores each application along two axes:

  • Business value: signals such as interview and financial fields that indicate how valuable the application is to the business.
  • Migration complexity: signals such as operating system, dependency mapping, and (when enabled) source code analysis that indicate how complex the application is to migrate or modernize.

Those scores are placed in a business value by migration complexity space. The engine then maps each application into a recommended disposition region and sets ‘Recommended Transition Type’.

Recommendations are relative within the project (or portfolio) peer set: apps are scored in the context of the other apps in that scope, not in isolation.

You are expected to review and, when appropriate, override the recommendation by setting the user-selected ‘Transition Type’ yourself.

Concept What it is
Recommended Transition Type Accelerator’s suggested disposition from the 6R recommendation engine.
Transition Type (user-selected) The disposition you choose on the application’s Migration Plan (Transition Planning). This is the value your team plans against.
Recommended Steps A checklist of next steps generated after you set Transition Type to rehost, replatform, or refactor. See Modernization Assessment: Recommended Steps.

Setting or changing the user-selected Transition Type does not re-run the 6R recommendation engine. Recommended Steps follow your selection; they are not how Accelerator chooses among the 6 Rs.

What it is not

Please do not confuse Transition Type Recommendations with:

  • Cloud Instance Recommendations: server to cloud instance target (CIT) sizing for Azure and Amazon Web Services.
  • Recommended Steps: narrative next steps after you pick a transition type (see above).
  • Modernization Assessment weighted score and MVA shortlist: presentation scoring used in the AMA PowerPoint flow, not the 6R disposition engine. See Modernization Assessment.
  • Financial Impact ROI comparison: manually entered alternative transition costs compared for ROI. That uses ‘6R’ language for cost comparison; it does not produce Recommended Transition Type. See Financial Impact: ROI Comparison.

Where do I start?

Group the applications you want scored together into an assessment project. Apps in a project are recommended relative to their project peers. Apps with no project are scored at the portfolio level.

When you create or edit a project, set the primary focus (for example savings, agility, and modernization-related goals). Focus influences how recommendation regions are oriented for that project.

2. Complete enough assessment data

The engine waits until enough of your portfolio or project is assessment-ready. Typical inputs that contribute to readiness include:

You generally need a meaningful set of applications in scope, with enough attributes completed per app, before recommendations appear. If recommendations are not ready yet, click the ? icon to see what you’re missing.

By default, source code analysis must be complete before an application receives a recommendation. You can lift this requirement for a project with the Bypass Source Code Analysis Requirement setting, which lets applications receive a recommendation sooner, based on less evidence.

Use the in-app readiness and progress indicators as the source of truth for what to finish next.

3. Wait for background computation

When assessment data changes, Accelerator recomputes recommendations in the background.

Once readiness gates are met, each eligible application receives a ‘Recommended Transition Type’, which you can find in the ‘Transition Planning’ section of the application record. Review it alongside your interview notes and architecture judgment, then set ‘Transition Type’ when your team agrees.

After you set Transition Type to rehost, replatform, or refactor, Accelerator will fill ‘Recommended Steps’ for planning detail.

How to customize recommendation behavior in a project

Projects expose settings that steer recommendations without changing raw inventory data.

Project focus (savings, agility, modernization)

When creating or editing a project, set the primary focus of the project, for example emphasizing cost savings, agility, and modernization themes (operating system, middleware, application frameworks). These focus choices adjust how disposition regions are applied for apps in that project. For more detail see Organizing your application assessments into projects.

Recommendation weights (business value vs migration complexity)

Each project has its own recommendation weights: the relative emphasis of business value versus migration complexity when composing the score used with the disposition map. By default, projects use a balanced emphasis between the two.

You can adjust these weights, and the finer-grained signals that feed each axis, on the project’s Settings tab. See 6R Recommendation for the business value and migration complexity balance, and Migration Complexity and Business Criticality for the underlying signals.

Changing these settings triggers a re-calculation of recommended transition type for apps in that project.

Accelerator recognizes the common transition types used in 6R-style planning, including rehost, replatform, refactor, retire, retain, repurchase, and relocate.

The automatic recommendation map currently assigns retire, replatform, rehost, and refactor. Retain, repurchase, and relocate remain available as user-selected transition types even when they are not produced automatically.

If your methodology needs retain, repurchase, or relocate as planned outcomes, set the user-selected Transition Type explicitly after review.

API (optional)

For automation and integrations, Accelerator exposes REST endpoints such as:

  • GET /apps/:id/recommended_transition_type
  • GET /apps/:id/recommendation_progress
  • GET /app_progress/recommendation_progress

Authenticate as you would for other Accelerator API calls. These endpoints return the recommended disposition and readiness progress; they do not replace reviewing recommendations in the product UI.