Red Hat's migration toolkit for applications 8.3 is now generally available, bringing agentic code modernization, direct storage mobility, and automated pipeline generation to OpenShift. Upgrading workloads to cloud-native architectures often means struggling with legacy code and complex stateful data transfers. Migration toolkit for applications 8.3 simplifies this process with automated multi-agent code transformation, live storage migrations, and pre-built deployment pipelines.
Container migration: MTC transition and OpenShift PVC mobility
The migration toolkit for applications from Red Hat now covers the container migration lifecycle. With the migration toolkit for containers reaching the end of support, migration toolkit for applications 8.3 serves as the official transition path. Migration toolkit for applications 8.3 introduces tools to automate both application manifest updates and data migration across clusters. It modernizes manifest handling using inspectable Kustomize overlays, automates the migration of cluster-level dependencies like custom resource definitions (CRDs) and security context constraints (SCCs), and adds a read-only preflight tool to validate API compatibility against target clusters.
For stateful workloads, the migration toolkit for applications expands storage mobility with direct TLS-encrypted persistent volume claim (PVC) transfers utilizing a stage-and-cutover flow, S3-mediated indirect migrations for disconnected environments, and intra-cluster StorageClass conversions that bypass Kubernetes immutability constraints.
- Direct PVC data transfer: Transfers PVC data between clusters over TLS-encrypted tunnels. Supports a stage-and-cutover flow: sync most data while the application stays live, then a brief delta transfer during cutover.
- Intra-cluster
StorageClassconversion: Shift workloads between storage back end, such as migrating to a Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver with zero application downtime. Platform teams can clone volume data to a newly provisioned PVC, and all workloads automatically re-bind to the new volume without manual manifest editing. - Indirect PVC data migration via S3: Enables secure PVC data transfers across air-gapped networks and cross-cloud environments. It ensures secure data transfer with client-side encryption and streamlined credential management via Kubernetes Secrets, fully validated for AWS S3.
- Automated build modernization (Technology Preview): Standardize build pipelines by replacing vendor-specific build APIs. Migration toolkit for applications 8.3 introduces the ability to automatically convert legacy OpenShift
BuildConfigresources into OpenShiftBuildcustom resources directly within the transform pipeline.
Agentic migration factory (Developer Preview)
Advancing beyond our foundational AI-assisted experience with Developer Lightspeed, migration toolkit for applications 8.3 introduces the agentic migration factory—an OpenShift-native execution engine that runs configurable, multi-agent migration workflows.
Upgrading legacy applications like Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6 (JBoss EAP 6) to Quarkus usually means spending days manually fixing broken dependencies. Instead of writing prompts one by one, platform engineers and developers can run multi-agent workflows that automatically analyze dependencies, update code, and validate builds across discrete stages.
- Multi-stage workflows: When a migration requires multiple steps (code analysis, dependency remediation, build validation, deployment configuration), each stage runs an agent that completes a specific task. Context is passed between stages through a handoff file on a shared Git branch, enabling iterative code resolutions.
- Single agent runs and governed execution: Agents run in secure sandboxes with strict policy, RBAC, and audit boundaries. Credentials remain completely isolated from the agent processes. Developers benefit from real-time streaming output during execution and configurable maximum context windows to prevent LLM overflow.
- Parallel at scale: Run multiple isolated migrations simultaneously using Git as the persistence layer.
- Built on industry standards: This initial iteration leverages the Agent Sandbox project, with future updates transitioning to OpenShell to provide a more standardized execution environment for AI agents.
Out-of-the-box generators & pipeline modernization
Migration toolkit for applications 8.3 ships with three new Helm-based generators as part of the Assets Generation framework. These provide onboarded Java applications with a complete CI/CD and GitOps deployment stack from day one:
- OpenShift Pipelines Generator: Produces a Tekton pipeline for source fetch, container build, and config repository updates.
- OpenShift GitOps Generator: Produces an Argo CD Application CR featuring automated sync, pruning, and self-healing.
- Java Service Generator: Produces Kubernetes deployment manifests and a multi-stage Containerfile for Spring Boot and Quarkus (JVM) applications.
Platform teams can associate these customizable generators with Archetypes in the MTA Hub for taxonomy-driven generation across vast application portfolios.
Getting started
Migration toolkit for applications 8.3 is available now. To test the new PVC migration capabilities, download the mta-ops CLI. To spin up your first AI-driven agent workflow, consult the official migration toolkit for applications documentation.
