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Legacy Application Modernization: 5 Best Techniques to Counter Market Forces
Changing market conditions around the globe forces companies to establish a modern and effective enterprise application environment. Be it digital transformation, social-media-analytics-cloud (SMAC), or productization, businesses IT systems must be flexible enough to respond to market forces in cost-effective ways. However, the legacy systems installed across an enterprise can’t support the accelerating pace of business change in today’s day and age. These legacy enterprise applications are built using decade-old technology, probably times when IBM mainframes were ruling the market. Every enterprise software development company today realizes the fact that it must transform its business systems with a modern technology stack, otherwise fall behind the competition. Though the ability to modernize the existing IT infrastructure depends upon its organizational culture, technical expertise, change management skills, funding availability, etc.
So, let’s discuss the five best ways for legacy system modernization that you can apply in your business today for reshaping company operations and staying in the market competition:
Five Approaches For Legacy System Modernization
1. The Total Transformation Approach
The total transformation approach focuses on rebuilding the entire standard enterprise software systems from scratch using modern technologies. Besides this, the systems built using third-party packages or IT consultation services providers’ assistance can also be redesigned using the total transformation approach.
For example, a healthcare solutions provider company can replace its traditional end-to-end claims processing system with a new claims solution. The reason for this change might be existing systems’ inability to support the current claims market needs, existing underlying technology going obsolete or irrelevant, and cropping of a new IT vision in the company.
Benefits of total transformation Approach
To get success with total transformation and minimize the risks associated with the entire system change, proper due diligence, change planning, stakeholder management, and quality control is required. Companies must understand that the entire system functionality is at stake and any minor quality issues can impact the business operations. Still, this is the best option for a complete system overhaul. You can mark this a high-risk high reward strategy in your notebooks.
2. The Gradual Replacement Approach
Under this strategy, a component or part of an IT system is replaced with new technology and moved to the production environment as a separate module while the remaining systems work on the same old technology. Over time, the remaining enterprise application components are also modernized using this strategy for the entire system to rebuild. This strategy is typically complex to execute in-house. Taking the assistance of legacy application modernization services providers is recommended for procuring the best results.
Situations When Using Applying This Strategy is Best
Also Read: 7 Techniques for Successful Legacy System Modernization
This is a low-risk strategy that focused on touching one system element at a time for a redesign. It requires less budget, average planning, and subtle work attention. Management bandwidth consumption is also less and the results delivered are quick compared to total transformation. Some of the key risks include the development of disjoint systems not working in sync, poor integration, version control difficulty, and less control over the tech stack of individualized enterprise applications.
3. The Duct Tape Approach
Localized, small-scale changes in enterprise applications are addressed using new technology under this approach. The core application architecture and technology remain the same. A popular example could be the development of a new application to bridge the gap in the functionality of the main app. This approach is opted by most modern-day businesses looking to modernize their core applications. Why? Because small changes in critical systems often deliver bigger returns compared to the entire system overhaul.
ROI remains concrete, results are quick, and risk is less compared to the above two approaches. Though one major downfall is that too much patchwork can lead to bad application behavior and poor design. Cost-effectiveness and due diligence are less too which leads to throw away work.
Below is the situation when applying this legacy application modernization technique is recommended:
4. The Existing Improvement Approach
This approach targets modernization by improving the design of existing enterprise software solutions. Enterprise application development services providers are typically seen in action with this method, delivering suggestions for minor design changes or code optimization to companies. For example, improving application code maintenance by consolidating common business rules across critical components and eliminating dead or redundant codes. Attending immediate burning issues is possible with this approach.
Procurement of new technology or thinking of future technology solutions is not needed here. Existing legacy systems are trusted upon for supporting minor changes. Though, the system lifespan is limited here with the unavailability of experienced resources in old technology. This opens floodgates for quality issues.
The situation when applying this legacy modernization approach is recommended include:
5. The No System Change Approach
Companies that walk down this strategy path believe that they don’t need any modernization efforts to drive a system change. For example, companies who have analyzed that ROI gains from modernization is not a satisfactory refrain for a system redesign. The benefits of this approach are pretty clear: no need for additional investment in modernization and companies can use these funds for other strategic tasks.
IT departments of such companies are also free to work upon addressing IT security vs compliance challenges. Since no specific technology decision is taken, companies are free to choose any new technology platform they find apt. Major risks of this approach include competitive disadvantage against market forces, fear of falling being competition, and loss of market share.
Here are some scenarios when you should choose this particular legacy modernization technique:
Bonus Strategies
5. Ring Fencing API
Though companies have used APIs for the past many years, they haven't been explored much when it comes to application modernization. However, the situation is changing now. Most software development companies have started realizing the significance of application programming interfaces in application modernization. APIs are pretty effective if you want to improve system security, facilitate real-time interactions with third-party apps, and more. Ring-fencing technique should be used in the following scenarios:
5. The No System Change Approach
This is one area where most companies get confused about between legacy system modernization and migration. Because it looks like a migration technique completely. Sometimes when you want to modernize your existing systems, you are required to make a shift to the modern platform to host your application. For example, moving from on-premise data storage facilities to the cloud for better data access, storage, and security. You could either switch your current host, relocate to a new platform, or both. Once the relocation is done, you should run various tests to ever
Here are some scenarios when you should choose this particular legacy modernization technique:
Doing Legacy Application Modernization The Modern Way
Hope the above legacy transformation approaches have offered you clarity about their benefits, applicability, and demerits. Finding which approach works best for your business depends upon your organization’s culture, requirements, risk appetite, existing IT infrastructure, and competitive landscape - there is no single golden piece one can recommend directly.
If you are also looking to modernize your existing legacy system, consult with our enterprise application modernization services specialists here at A3logics. Our EAM specialists have a decade long-experience in recommending personalized strategies and a forward-looking modernization plan to businesses of all kinds.
Drop us a line to have a free consultation with our EAI specialists about your legacy modernization needs.
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