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Legacy System Modernization: Move Your System Into Today’s World

Legacy system modernization helps to improve the current system that you already use by bringing into today’s world and giving you the ability to personalize and customize it as you go.

What is Legacy System Modernization?

Legacy system modernization takes your current technology and brings it into today’s world. For many, their existing systems are impossible to replace because they just do so much that is vital to the organization and day-to-day functionality of a company – or, it is a legacy application. A legacy system isn’t defined by its age, but rather due to the (lack of) technology and software in the existing architecture or design.

Legacy System Modernization Strategies

 

There are two strategies for legacy system modernization. The revolutionary method shuts down the old system and builds the new one from scratch. While this is extreme and takes more time, it is the better choice in situations where the older system cannot be modernized safely, or the current system will not solve existing businesses problems. The evolutionary approach is a step-by-step legacy system modernization roadmap that is less extreme and does not interrupt the major business process. It has much less risk for the company, though sometimes more significant problems cannot be solved.

 

When we consider legacy system modernization, we focus on the business needs and requirements of each individual client – and focus on the opportunities for growth in the future. We will help you to make informed decisions in an unbiased manner over what options are the best for your company.

Why Is Legacy System Modernization Necessary?

When companies use an outdated system, there are many problems that can emerge. The cost of running obsolete systems is vast and hits an organization at every level. Think about your IT budget: most of it will go toward maintaining your legacy system. As your IT team what they do every day, and it is likely that a pattern will start to emerge.

Without modernization, changing even something small within your system results in multiple changes throughout the entire system, sometimes in ways that you do not want. Then, your IT team has to go back through and change everything. The result? A crumbling infrastructure that is harder and harder to maintain. At the same time, you need technical environments and hardware that people just don’t know or produce anymore. Hiring becomes difficult; firing is harder because you don’t want to let go of the only person who knows something, and everyone feels the impact of trying to keep up with the underlying infrastructure.

Even worse, out of date software and hardware open your organization and its systems up to vulnerabilities and risks that bring on cyber attacks, malware, and harmful programs. The longer you have a system in place, the more likely hackers are to be knowledgeable of how to infiltrate it. This is true even in a custom system, where there are patches and fixes that are standard.

Legacy System Modernization Approaches

There are a few different approaches to legacy system modernization, including some that are popular because of their ease of use and those that are required for more specific types of systems.

The most popular legacy system modernization approach is migration. This moves your entire system to the cloud, making some minor enhancements (UI/UX updates, database migration, performance optimization, etc.) along the way.  There may need to be some application modernization as well, though this approach is simple and straightforward.

Another approach is a complete software re-engineering approach. This is an extreme method that is only used in the most serious of cases. It relies on your own business’s strength and analytics to make the changes. You have to make determinations quickly and efficiently to decide what features you need, what features are no longer used, and what features that you want.

The best approach to legacy system modernization is cloud migration. It allows for most of your system to be kept as-is and the only work that you have to do improves the functionality of your system.

In general, a legacy system modernization assessment will help to do the following:

  • Technologies Analysis
  • Architecture Audit
  • Code Review
  • Performance Testing

Legacy System Modernization Services –Schedule a Call

Regardless of what approach you choose, software modernization is a complex, risky, and labor-intensive process. The results are well worth the risk, especially if you work with a team that can help you to bring your software into the future.

We can make your business one that competes today by handling every aspect of a legacy-system modernization. Schedule a call today to see how we can enhance your systems for the better – and keep modernizing from here on out.