How to modernize legacy applications? 4 Ways to achieve it

Customers are less likely to use applications with rigid features and that don’t meet their requirements. They always look for futuristic solutions that can simplify and enhance their efforts and experience. In an ongoing digital economy, it’s often the software that can make or break your relationship with customers, drive growth, and remain competitive.

Hence, running your business still on legacy software systems fails to bring agility, flexibility and lacks change management.

Do you have any legacy applications and are struggling with any of the above challenges? If so, it is the best time for legacy systems modernization for exceptional growth.

legacy systems modernization in 2021

What are legacy systems?

Legacy applications are software applications developed two decades, if not a decade ago, to meet a specific purpose of an organization. Back then, they were core engines that helped organizations run smoothly. But amid the ongoing technological disruptions, legacy systems struggle to scale and meet your customer’s evolving needs.

To overcome the challenges associated with outdated technologies, companies are adopting software-driven approaches and leveraging hyper-converged strategies. Legacy application modernization, on the other hand, comes with integrity and security features.

Example:

You might have used Windows XP a couple of years ago. But now, Microsoft’s assistance including automatic security updates and technical support, is no longer available for the XP version making it obsolete.

Whereas Windows 10 will get automatic security updates and suggestions, enhancing the user experience with improved security.

Why do you need legacy application modernization?

As discussed above, legacy systems lack adaptability, agility, security and hamper your growth. Instead of helping the business grow bigger and better, legacy applications are now becoming a hindrance.

As mobile usage surges worldwide, companies are spearheading to embrace applications that are compatible and accessible on mobile devices. Whereas legacy applications dating back decades are not compatible with modern mobile devices — — further fails to entice both employees and customers.

Here are the top reasons why you should consider legacy application modernization.

1. The legacy system will no longer receive technical support and maintenance.
2. Legacy systems are incompatible with modern applications since their technology is outdated.
3. Legacy apps cause bottlenecks in your day-to-day operations.
4. Legacy applications are costly to maintain and require extensive resources to manage in the long run.

How to do legacy systems modernization? 4 ways to bring your software into the future.

Legacy applications serve your purpose. But if you want to beat the competition and stay on top of your customer’s minds, they lack some essential features. So to meet your long-term goals, primarily, you have two ways.

1. Discarding older systems
2. Modernizing legacy applications

Discarding systems used for years is such a high risk for companies. When you plan to discard the old system, data migration and security have become crucial challenges. For that, you have to align old data records and update the data manually.

Legacy systems modernization doesn’t discard your old applications. Instead, it focuses on redesigning your architecture, redeveloping the code, and re-engineer your infrastructure with new features.

Legacy app modernization is no more a trend or fad. Henceforth, you should have the right legacy modernization strategies in place to transform your legacy apps into resource-efficient and drive optimal performance.

1. Application assessment:

Legacy app migration starts with application assessment. Here, not every application needs to be replaced or migrated to modern platforms. Therefore, businesses should assess the entire organization’s needs and identify the legacy system that needs migration to modern SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions.

The application assessment starts with identifying the right technology stack. The right technology stack helps you get a solution that suits your requirements and environment — — further helps you reduce risks and achieve true business objectives. Along with technology stack assessment, identifying operating systems and servers required to run your SaaS applications make your legacy systems migration seamless and save significant time and cost.

2. Evaluate your legacy data:

Similar to assessing your legacy applications, data assessment and prioritization are imperative in the legacy systems modernization process. Identifying data and migrating it to the cloud applications help you evaluate and forecast growth.

To make your legacy data migration easy and effective, prioritize data into high, moderate, and low categories and migrate accordingly. Leveraging advanced technologies like Big data gives you real-time insights into your business operations and further helps you track KPIs.

3. Software risk assessment:

Every software platform has its technical glitches, and hackers try to take advantage of those vulnerabilities. Therefore, it is essential to do a software risk assessment before you migrate legacy applications. Because the higher the risk implies, the higher the loss of corporate revenue and reputation.

The software risk assessment scale ranges between 0 and 1. As the software risk reaches the value of 1, the higher the chance of cybersecurity flaws, and you have to pay a ransom amount to it. So, it is suggestible to avoid those software applications.

The average ransom paid by victim organizations in Europe, the US, and Canada has almost trebled from $115,123 (€96,666/£82,788) in 2019 to $312,493 in 2020, and with the spread of double extortion tactics this number is continuing to grow, according to statistics gathered by threat researchers at Palo Alto Networks’s Unit 42.

Source

4. Application security threat assessment:

Security is a paramount factor for any business despite its scale and size. Especially during legacy systems modernization, it is essential to list down the potential application security vulnerabilities. Further, you can rate them as high, moderate, and low vulnerability threats.

Deploying your business on high-risk platforms costs you twice more than you invest in legacy migration.

For example, password hacking is a common threat to any business. Once the hacker gets access to your system, he pretends to be the legitimate user of your system and makes it more vulnerable and malicious.

Growing security threats in 2021

6 Rs’ of enterprise application modernization: Phases of modernizing legacy systems

Legacy software modernization strategy involves numerous phases, from rehosting to replacing the entire application. Let’s drill down the 6Rs of legacy systems modernization and how they help you get the best ROI.

1. Rehost:

Rehosting is the process of redeploying your application to other infrastructure without modifying its base code and features/functions.

For example, companies often change their hosting platforms from Bluehost to GoDaddy and vice versa.

2. Replatform:

It involves migrating to a new runtime platform, making minor changes to the base code, but not its code structure and features.

3. Refactor:

Refactoring involves optimizing the base code by removing technical gaps and improving its compatibility for operational efficiency.

4. Rearchitect:

In this process, you materially alter the base code to comply with the new architectures to unlock new features and capabilities.

5. Rebuild:

It’s the process of redesigning or writing code from scratch while preserving its functionalities and scope.

6. Replace:

It’s the process of replacing your old system with a new system altogether, considering your requirements and business goals.

Amzur’s legacy application modernization services:

In the current technology-driven world, companies must recalibrate their IT landscape to remain competitive. Amzur’s legacy systems modernization services help organizations transform the way of doing business and enticing their customers.

With our proven experience in cloud migration and software development backed by agile methodologies, we help our clients reap the benefits of legacy software application modernization to the fullest.

Our application re-engineering or migration services focus on

1. Building resilient and futuristic solutions
2. Developing responsive and scalable solutions
3. Ensuring your infrastructure stay relevant to the future needs

Our legacy modernization services include:

1. Web and mobile application development and modernization
2. NetSuite Cloud ERP implementation to migrate the data from your legacy software.
3. Application development using DevOps and Ruby-On-Rails
4. Agile software testing and Quality Assurance services for high-quality product development.

Are you still at the crossroads and unclear about how legacy systems modernization can help your business improve efficiency and productivity? Let Amzur’s digital transformation experts team assess your IT landscape and build a roadmap with best-fitting technologies.

Source: legacy systems modernization