In many cases, legacy modernization requires a new style of development that encompasses new priorities for the full enterprise technology stack, from hardware and data centers up through the OS, user experience and mobile interface.
I recently wrote in my Software Intelligence primer that the goal of IT modernization must be to create new business value from new and/or existing applications or systems. This brings software quality and security to the front and center of any modernization effort.
For the College Board, IT modernization meant re-architecting some of their applications for a cloud migration. As part of this effort, the College Board’s VP and chief data officer, Jeff Olson, had the foresight to take advantage of PaaS, rather than a more straightforward IaaS move.
"If you move to the cloud via lift and shift, and you're taking all of those layers and replicating them,” Mr. Olson told CIO Dive, “You're kind of shoveling them from one location to another, which means you're keeping all that maintenance.”
The College Board also took advantage of the full scope of services offered by their cloud provider of choice to re-architect their applications in a simpler way. This modernization strategy enabled their IT teams to operate faster, more efficiently and at a lower cost compared to their previously-monolithic applications. Mr. Olson calls these the College Board’s “North Stars.”
To read more about the College Board’s modernization journey, read the full case study on CIO Dive.
