What is a legacy system?

A legacy system is an outdated software system, technology, hardware or infrastructure that is still in use. They may still be performing the functions initially intended to do but lack growth prospects, and even maintenance and support.Often, legacy systems are such critical parts of the organization’s day-to-day activities that migrating to modern tech systems is a matter of considerable risk. Thus, require to be carefully assessed and planned.

What are the challenges related to modernization of legacy applications?

Some of the challenges related to modernization of legacy applications include: 1) Vendor lock-ins over time 2) Monoliths in the old legacy systems are difficult to break 3) Optimizing application silos gets complex

What are the different types of legacy application modernization strategies?

A legacy application modernization strategy is the approach taken to infuse modern technologies into your outdated business applications. There are two most adapted strategies for modernization of legacy applications. They are: 1) Revolutionary Approach of Modernization: The revolutionary approach or strategy is platform-based and application-oriented. With this strategy in place, your legacy system will be completely shifted to the 'new world' applications that are both written and deployed for the cloud. This is a digital transformation approach where modifications will be made from scratch. 2) Evolutionary Approach of Modernization: The evolutionary approach or strategy is a slower adaption technique of cloud computing. This is a multi-phased, long-term model with the same goals as in revolutionary approach. This is a good strategy to adapt by businesses with huge dependency on their legacy systems.

How to choose the right strategy for modernizing legacy applications?

There are six considering factors to decide the correct approach or strategy for legacy modernization. Below are the factors. 1) Risk: Evaluating the associated business risks of modernizing legacy applications will help you understand the right approach or strategy to be adapted. In fact, this will be one of the primary factors of decision-making for every aspect of modernization or digital transformation. 2) Workload/Migration Scope: Auditing the legacy systems for identifying aspects (features) to modernize in the current system helps decide on the right approach or strategy adaption. 3) Architecture: Evaluate on the infrastructural aspects and overall performance to assess where newer technologies may boost outcomes. This will influence your decision-making towards the correct strategy. 4) Operations: Assess and understand which new skill sets will be needed for your team to use the modernized system and factor out the existing possibilities with training against costs and timelines. 5) Security: Perform proper planning to protect legacy systems before, during, and after the modernization process to avoid loss of critical data. Ensure to comply to governmental and industry regulations in the new environment. 6) Financial Investments: The spends has to be well-calculated. The budget will help decide on the approach or strategy to adapt for modernizing legacy applications. This is another primary decision-making criteria for any sort of digital transformation.

What is Legacy Application Modernization and Its Process