CAST for Compliance

🔹 1. CAST for Ongoing Architecture Compliance

CAST (CAST Highlight, CAST AIP, CAST Imaging) isn’t just for initial assessment — it continues to monitor your application portfolio and code health after modernization:

• Architecture Rules Enforcement

  • Define rules like “microservice must not directly access another microservice’s DB”, “no cyclic dependencies”, “layering constraints (API → Service → DB)”.

  • CAST continuously scans codebases to validate compliance.

  • Provides architecture compliance dashboards for architects and developers.

• Technical Debt Tracking

  • Monitors maintainability, complexity, and security issues across microservices.

  • Helps ensure modernization doesn’t degrade over time.

• Microservice Dependency Visualization

  • CAST Imaging shows a real-time map of services, APIs, and database calls.

  • Helps avoid accidental tight coupling as new features are added.

• Cloud Readiness Checks

  • Tracks code patterns that could break cloud portability (e.g., hard-coded file paths, blocking calls).

🔹 2. vFunction for Continuous Microservice Evolution

vFunction goes beyond initial service extraction. It helps refactor and continuously evolve microservices as business changes:

• Service Boundary Refinement

  • Legacy services may start too big. vFunction identifies new seams for splitting them further.

  • Example: “Loan Management” service might later split into “Loan Origination” and “Loan Collections.”

• Event-Driven Refactoring

  • Detects shared classes / dead code / chatty dependencies that indicate new refactoring opportunities.

  • Suggests moving toward event-driven patterns (Kafka, Pub/Sub) when appropriate.

• Continuous Domain Alignment

  • As business capabilities evolve, vFunction re-analyzes code and suggests service re-mapping.

  • Keeps architecture aligned with DDD (Domain-Driven Design) principles.

• Modernization Lifecycle

  • Instead of a one-time “big bang,” vFunction supports a factory model:

    • Identify → Extract → Deploy → Monitor → Refactor → Repeat.

🔹 3. Combined Flow

Here’s how they work together after modernization:

[Microservices + APIs] --- Source code scanned ---> [CAST Compliance Engine]
       |                                                |
       |                                                v
       |----------------------------------------> Architecture dashboards 
       |                                                |
       |--- Evolution triggers (new business need) ---> vFunction Analysis
                                                        |
                                                        v
                                            Refactored / Resplit Services

✅ In summary:

• CAST = Governance & guardrails → ensures the architecture stays compliant and healthy.

• vFunction = Evolution & adaptability → ensures services remain well-bounded and modernized.

Together, they provide continuous modernization, not just a one-time migration.