Legacy application modernization enables you to gain a competitive edge by upgrading your outdated applications to more efficient, scalable, and user-friendly custom solutions. This process often involves transitioning monolithic applications to a cloud architecture.
Given the close integration of these applications with your existing systems, the modernization journey can be complex. However, with a well-devised strategy, you can ensure that the benefits surpass the complexities and yield a meaningful return on investment.
What Legacy Modernization Means
Legacy system modernization is the process of updating or transforming systems with obsolete infrastructure and outdated software to meet your current business needs and technological standards.
This is an ongoing endeavor, aimed at ensuring your applications consistently stay in sync with business objectives and technological progress. Although this strategy might demand significant time and effort initially, it will likely be more efficient in the long run compared to the cost of fixing issues arising from a poorly executed overhaul.
Why Would Modernization be Necessary?
Many businesses continue their daily operations without realizing that slow systems, misleading data, or integration issues don’t have to be a constant struggle. These problems are clear indicators that it’s time to consider modernizing your applications.
Here are some common indicators:
- Performance Issues: Slow system response times and frequent downtime indicate that your applications can’t keep up with current demands, creating a costly disruption to your business operations.
- Do your employees often complain about long processing times for tasks?
- Are your systems slowing down during peak business hours?
- Integration Challenges: Compatibility problems with newer software and isolated data systems make it difficult for you to integrate and streamline your business processes.
- Is your data spread across multiple systems that don’t communicate with each other?
- Is your business encountering errors when transferring data between systems?
- Data Inaccuracy: Producing inaccurate data and requiring manual intervention for corrections indicate inefficiencies that a modern system could resolve.
- Is manual data entry and correction becoming a significant portion of your workload?
- Do you lack real-time insights necessary for making informed business decisions?
- Increased Maintenance Costs: Rising IT expenses and the difficulty of finding support for outdated systems can end up costing you more than investing in modernization.
- Is your business spending increasingly more on IT support and maintenance for our current systems?
- Is it challenging for you to find technicians who can service your outdated software?
- Is your business constantly applying patches and fixes to keep the system running?
- Security Risks: Vulnerabilities to cyber threats and the difficulties of meeting current regulatory standards suggest that your legacy systems are no longer secure.
- Does your business lack the latest security features and protections?
- Are your systems vulnerable to cyber-attacks or security breaches?
- Have you received any compliance warnings or fines due to outdated software?
- Poor User Experience: An outdated user interface and the lack of mobile access can frustrate your users, reducing productivity and satisfaction.
- Do your employees find the user interface clunky and difficult to navigate?
- Are your users frequently seeking workarounds to perform tasks more efficiently?
- Limited Scalability: Legacy systems often struggle to handle increased workloads or adapt to new business needs, limiting your ability to scale.
- Is your system struggling to handle increased customer or workload demands?
- Are you unable to easily add new features or functionalities to your applications?
- Competitive Disadvantage: Falling behind competitors and missing out on innovative technologies signal that your business needs to modernize to stay competitive.
- Are you lagging in customer satisfaction or innovation compared to your industry peers?
- Are your competitors deploying newer technologies that give them an edge?
If your business is facing these issues, ask yourself those questions, it’s crucial to recognize that it’s time to create a strategy to modernize your legacy applications.
The Benefits of Legacy Application Modernization
- Improved Collaboration and Communication: Modern applications frequently include built-in features that support better collaboration and communication within your teams, across departments, and with your clients or customers. This enhances your overall productivity, efficiency, and customer engagement.
- Integration Capabilities: Modern systems offer advanced integration capabilities, facilitating seamless data flow and interoperability across your platforms.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: Modern systems often come with advanced analytics and reporting tools that help you make more informed decisions based on real-time data and insights.
- Scalability and Adaptability: Legacy systems often struggle with handling increased loads and adapting to new business demands. Modern applications are designed to be more scalable, allowing you to adjust quickly to market changes and growth opportunities.
- Automation and AI Integration: Modern applications often include advanced automation features and integrate AI capabilities. These innovations can significantly reduce your manual workloads, minimize errors, and handle complex tasks, thereby freeing up your resources for more strategic initiatives.
Modernization methods
Here are three of the most common application modernization methods, each varying in time, strategy, and cost:
Rehosting (“lift-and-shift”)
Rehosting involves migrating your applications to a cloud environment with minimal changes to their architecture, facilitating a quicker, less disruptive transition. This method is cost-effective and carries fewer risks, making it an attractive option if you need immediate performance improvements without extensive redevelopment.
It is especially practical for applications that cannot undergo significant modifications due to constraints such as time, budget, or complexity.
Suppose you’re using an outdated inventory management system like a Windows Server 2008-based application within your local servers. Rehosting would mean moving this entire system as-is to a cloud environment like Microsoft Azure or AWS without making significant changes to the application itself. This would provide immediate benefits like improved scalability and reduced hardware maintenance without the need for extensive modifications.
Check out this case study of rehosting here.
Replatforming
Replatforming involves migrating your applications to a new platform with minor optimizations, enabling you to better use cloud capabilities without a complete architectural overhaul. This approach enhances your performance and scalability, resulting in more efficient and responsive applications.
It is particularly effective for achieving significant improvements through minor changes and is ideal for applications needing better integration with cloud services without a full rebuild.
Suppose your business is using an outdated inventory management system like Microsoft Access on local servers. Replatforming would involve migrating this application to a cloud-based platform like Microsoft Azure SQL Database, with some optimizations to better utilize cloud capabilities.
Check out this case study of replatforming here.
Refactoring
Refactoring is an intensive cloud migration strategy that involves completely rewriting your application’s code to enhance its structure and performance while maintaining core functionality. This approach maximizes your scalability, flexibility, and efficiency by leveraging cloud-native architectures like microservices and serverless computing.
Ideal for modernizing legacy systems, refactoring ensures that your application stays adaptable and maintainable, meeting your future technological and business needs.
Suppose your business is using an outdated inventory management system built on an old .NET Framework that’s become slow and difficult to maintain. Refactoring would involve completely rewriting the application’s code to enhance its structure and performance while preserving its core functionality.
For instance, you might transition to .NET Core or .NET 5+ with a microservices architecture, breaking the application into smaller, independent services. You could also integrate modern technologies like Kubernetes for container orchestration and Azure Functions for serverless computing. This way, your application becomes faster, more efficient, and highly adaptable to future needs.
Check out this case study of refactoring here.
The Strategy of Legacy Application Modernization
Your strategy for legacy application modernization needs to be well thought out to achieve the maximum benefits.
There are 9 steps when it comes to a modernization strategy:
- Assessing the current state
- Prioritize features and desired improvements
- Choose the right platform
- Planning the migration
- Ensure data integrity and security
- Developing and testing the new platform
- Training and change management
- Executing the migration
- Post-migration activities
Let’s take a closer look:
Step 1 – Assessing the current state
Assessing the current state of your applications is crucial before modernization, as it identifies performance bottlenecks, limitations, and areas for improvement. You can also start thinking about what is most crucial to update, what would cost the most, or what would be the most valuable to modernize.
Step 2 – Prioritize features and desired improvements
Prioritizing features during your strategy is essential for aligning with business goals and user expectations, enhancing your application’s value. Focusing on speed, security, and scalability ensures the application meets current demands and positions your business for future growth.
Step 3 – Choose the right platform
Choosing the most suitable platform is foundational to your strategy. Carefully evaluate potential platforms based on your specific business requirements, focusing on scalability, cost-effectiveness, and available support services to ensure they support your operational goals and position your organization for future growth.
Step 4 -Planning the migration
Having a clear migration plan is essential for your strategy, as detailed steps minimize risks and keep the project on track. Establish realistic timelines and allocate tasks to the right people to leverage expertise efficiently, ensuring the migration aligns with your business goals and stays on budget.
Step 5 – Ensure data integrity and security
Accurate data preparation is crucial for your strategy, involving data mapping, cleaning, and secure migration to align with the new platform’s requirements. Maintaining compliance with security and regulatory standards protects your organization from potential risks and liabilities, safeguarding your business’s reputation.
Step 6 – Developing and testing the new platform
With data integrity and security strategies in place, set up your new application environment to fully leverage the capabilities of the cloud. Conduct thorough testing on functional, performance, and security aspects to ensure the platform meets your business needs, making iterative adjustments based on test results for smooth and efficient operation.
Step 7 – Training and change management
Creating clear and thorough documentation is essential to guide your team through the new platform’s features and processes. Effective training sessions, clear communication, and ongoing support will help your users and stakeholders adapt swiftly and confidently, ensuring a smooth transition and addressing concerns and feedback throughout the process.
Step 8 – Executing the migration
When performing the actual migration, focus on managing the process to minimize disruption to your operations. Careful planning, coordination, and real-time monitoring will help address any issues promptly, while thorough post-migration validation ensures everything functions as expected for a smooth transition to the new platform.
Step 9 – Post-migration activities
After the migration, post-migration testing and validation are essential to ensure everything functions as intended. Gathering user feedback and prioritizing ongoing performance monitoring will provide insights and enable continuous optimization, ensuring the platform meets your business objectives and supports long-term growth.
Modernizing Legacy Applications, What’s Next?
Modernizing legacy applications is essential for businesses facing performance issues, integration challenges, and rising maintenance costs. By upgrading your outdated systems, you can enhance security, improve user experience, and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.
At Orases, we specialize in modernizing legacy applications to improve efficiency, scalability, and user experience. Contact us today to find a custom strategy to modernize your applications.
