The Legacy Cycle Store MVC App is an AWS Samples reference project that demonstrates the starting state of a real-world legacy ASP.NET MVC 4 application backed by a SQL Server database on Amazon RDS. It serves as the foundation for a step-by-step guide to modernizing .NET Framework applications to ASP.NET Core 3.1 with Entity Framework Core — enabling cross-platform deployment, containerization, and cloud-native operation.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/aws-samples/legacy-cycle-store-mvc-app/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Introduction
Understand the project goals, context, and how this app fits into the broader modernization series.
Architecture
Explore the solution structure, AWS infrastructure, and component relationships.
Prerequisites
Review the tools and AWS account setup required before deploying the application.
Deploy RDS
Provision a SQL Server Express RDS instance using the included CloudFormation template.
What You’ll Build
The Cycle Store is a product-browsing web application based on the AdventureWorks dataset. The legacy version runs on .NET Framework 4.5 with ASP.NET MVC 4 and Entity Framework 5 (Database-First with an EDMX model), connected to aCYCLE_STORE SQL Server database hosted on Amazon RDS.
Deploy the database
Use the included AWS CloudFormation template to spin up an Amazon RDS SQL Server Express instance and load the
CYCLE_STORE schema with product data.Configure the connection string
Update
Web.config with your RDS endpoint and credentials so the application can connect to the database.Run the legacy app
Open the solution in Visual Studio and run the ASP.NET MVC 4 application to see the cycle store in action.
Modernization Path
Modernization Overview
Understand why and how to move from .NET Framework to .NET Core, and what changes are required.
EF to EF Core
Replace the EDMX Database-First model with a Code-First EF Core context and entity classes.
ASP.NET to Core
Migrate MVC controllers, views, and startup configuration from ASP.NET to ASP.NET Core.
Containerization
Package the modernized application in a Docker container for portable, repeatable deployment.
Application Deep Dive
Project Structure
Navigate the Visual Studio solution layout and understand the role of each directory and file.
Data Model
Explore the CYCLE_STORE database schema and the EF5 EDMX entities mapped to it.
Business Layer
Study the CategoryManager and ProductManager classes that encapsulate all data-access logic.
MVC Layer
Understand the controllers, views, and layout model that compose the user-facing application.