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How to Successfully Migrate Your Legacy Applications

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If you are holding on to some of your legacy applications, it is often because of compliance, reference, or regulatory reasons. Unfortunately, these obsolete systems with large amounts of data conflict with your company’s plans to modernize and digitize the whole business.

Legacy applications are the backbone of businesses that have been around for decades.

Businesses can adopt several common legacy application modernization strategies to improve their workflow and stay competitive. One of the most popular options is to migrate the application to a cloud environment. Cloud migration is a great way to provide scalability and flexibility because it enables businesses to access the application anywhere with an internet connection. With cloud migration, businesses no longer rely on physical hardware or software to run the application. This makes everything more cost-efficient and is the safest option. 

Common Legacy Application Modernization Strategies

Legacy Applications can pose a security risk. Keeping unmaintained and obsolete legacy applications up and running because you need access to the information stored in those systems poses a clear security risk. Explore common strategies for modernising legacy applications.

You can take different approaches; we’d highly recommend you look into strategic application retirement and consult our comprehensive article on Application Retirement Strategies. If you want to modernise your current application, you have the option to do the following: 

  • Code refactoring: A meticulous process of dissecting source code to optimise functionality, eliminate dead code, and enhance scalability. 
  • The rewrite approach: replacing legacy applications with entirely new systems. 

Retiring Legacy Applications

Legacy application decommissioning or sunsetting is shutting down obsolete applications while migrating their data to standardised archives where this information will always be accessible. Let’s explore the main reasons for initiating the retirement of your legacy applications.

Outdated Technologies:

  • Legacy applications use outdated technologies, often incompatible with modern business systems.
  • Applications developed in old programming languages and outdated technologies are challenging to maintain.
  • Finding experienced developers for these technologies poses a hurdle for updates and maintenance.

Security Risks:

  • Legacy applications are susceptible to cybersecurity threats due to their use of outdated technologies.
  • Outdated technologies lack modern security features, exposing businesses to cybersecurity threats and potential data breaches.

Limited Scalability:

  • Legacy applications are designed for older hardware and architecture, making scaling challenging.
  • Accommodating growing business demands requires expensive and time-consuming hardware upgrades.
  • Legacy applications, therefore, limit the scalability and growth potential of your business.

High Maintenance Costs:

  • Maintaining legacy applications entails additional resources and investment over time.
  • Costs include hiring specialised talent, purchasing hardware, and applying outdated security patches.
  • These cumulative costs result in high and unnecessary expenditures for businesses.

Diminishing Business Value:

  • Organisational changes render legacy applications less useful over time.
  • Legacy applications progressively fail to meet evolving business needs, diminishing their overall business value.

Legacy Application Decommissioning: What Services Can Help You Modernize?

‘Application’ includes platforms, systems, hardware configurations, programming languages, and more. We are talking about all types of information— often data, images, videos, and documents such as contracts. 

Modernisation is not a one-size-fits-all solution, so before choosing a path, it is essential to evaluate your existing systems. Identify the primary pain points and find out what functionalities are missing. This will help you decide which approach will work best for your business. Some IT consulting firms offer legacy application assessment services, which can provide accurate analysis and recommendations based on your unique needs.

Once you have identified the gaps in your current system, the next step is to explore modernisation options. Several approaches to modernising legacy applications include archiving, re-hosting, re-platforming, re-architecting and complete redevelopment. Each approach has unique advantages and disadvantages, depending on cost, resources, and timeframes. An experienced IT services provider can help you weigh the pros and cons of each option to help you make an informed decision.

How Do You Start Migrating Your Legacy Applications?

At Docbyte, we recommend archiving that information in a secure online solution. In other words, retire those applications and reduce your total cost ownership (TCO). Explore the initial steps and considerations involved in migrating legacy applications.

Data migration is an essential process when transitioning from one application to another. However, analysing the data can be a daunting task. Two crucial steps you must consider are determining which data to migrate into the new application and which data to archive. Migrating irrelevant data could cause confusion, slow performance, and wasted resources. On the other hand, failing to archive the right data could lead to data corruption, security breaches, and costly legal implications. Therefore, careful consideration of which data to keep, move, or archive can significantly impact the success of your application’s transition.

legacy application decommission template

When Is a Good Idea to Move Your Legacy Applications to the Cloud?

Consider this business challenge: a company maintains an aged legacy application, accessing it sporadically to retrieve specific data from its database. To determine the opportune moment for migrating your legacy applications to the cloud, assess key scenarios. Explore considerations such as migrating business data to the cloud, reaching the natural end of your application’s lifecycle, transitioning to a modern app, and the imperative need to store, organize, and manage sensitive data in compliance with data regulations.

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