Modernization is more than a business buzzword. Taking steps to modernize legacy applications can accelerate your organization's success. If maximizing the value of your software and digital transformation are your goals, it’s time to focus your attention on legacy system transformation.
What is application modernization?
Application modernization is the process of replacing, updating or upgrading the internal architecture and features of an outdated legacy IT system. This aspect of digital transformation can manifest differently across industries, but most often involves migrating an application’s infrastructure from on-premises to cloud-based environments to move away from a monolithic architecture.
The 3 pillars of legacy app modernization:
- Architecture: Modernizing a legacy IT system starts with technical changes, with organizations shifting away from hard-to-change monolith software to more modern, flexible and agile services, such as cloud-native architecture.
- Technology: Investing in legacy modernization means implementing modern, cloud-based tools, such as microservices, PaaS and DevOps, to reduce costs and improve operational excellence.
- Process: Legacy system transformation wouldn’t be possible without realigning teams into domain-driven, self-sustaining units focused on boosting productivity, reducing delays and supporting development.
Why modernize your legacy applications now?
The primary goal of legacy software modernization lies in transitioning monolithic applications into more cost-efficient, scalable and maintainable systems. This reframing results in increased agility, faster development cycles and improved performance.
Modernizing legacy applications can eliminate high maintenance costs associated with outdated infrastructure. Moving away from on-premise hardware to cloud-native architecture has proven to reduce overhead costs, resulting in savings of 15% to 35% per year. While initial implementation may sound daunting, replacing obsolete tools and services will save you in the long run.
Transforming legacy systems helps mitigate security risks. Any technologies running on unsupported platforms lack the security patches needed to protect data against modern threats and are often deemed by cyber insurance providers to be too vulnerable. Upgrading to more modern systems facilitates better data protection, reduces operational downtime and ensures regulatory compliance.
Additional benefits of legacy app modernization:
- Faster time-to-market for updates and features
- Rapid response to customer feedback
- Reduced operational cost of ownership
- Enhanced security controls and compliance standards
- Elastic scaling and improved user experience
- Easier integration with other modern applications
- Increased competitive advantage
Are there any challenges to legacy system transformation?
Legacy system modernization doesn’t come without its challenges. Between upfront costs, technical hurdles and company-wide decisions, the road to cloud-native architecture isn’t always simple.
But the benefits outweigh the risks. Working with an experienced business consultant will make navigating the challenges simple.
Common challenges in legacy modernization:
- Technical debt and budget overruns
- Risk of disruption during the transition
- Data migration difficulties
- Integration with newer technology
- Employee resistance to change
Developing an infrastructure modernization strategy
To successfully transform a legacy system, you’ll need an organized and well-rounded strategy. Designing a clear strategy will help you and your team ensure that every step of the process supports your organization's long-term objectives.
Before decisions are made or technologies are chosen, you’ll want to assess the existing infrastructure for any identifiable limitations. Taking a closer look at outdated and possibly siloed systems will lead you to identifying bottlenecks, security risks and potential compatibility issues. Once these issues are identified, your business can prioritize which components to upgrade or replace in what order.
After engaging key stakeholders and gaining their valuable insights on how software modernization will impact the involved departments, set a realistic timeline and establish measurable goals. This will help manage expectations and encourage employees to stay on track as you shop for different technologies and services. After project milestones are defined, you can execute the strategy by updating or migrating systems in phases, while continuing to monitor performance and security to identify issues as they arise.
What are the main strategies for modernizing legacy applications?
Outdated legacy systems can be organized in multiple ways, depending on the business’s goals and industry trends. As technology continues to evolve and more and more companies are moving towards cloud-native architecture, knowing how to proceed can seem difficult. That’s why the seven R’s of legacy software modernization have become so useful.
The 7 R’s of legacy modernization:
- Rehost: Also known as the “lift-and-shift,” it’s the simplest and fastest migration option, as it involves just moving your application from one environment to another.
- Replatform: Sometimes called the “lift-tinker-and-shift method,” it involves making minor and targeted changes within a system to take advantage of existing cloud capabilities without overhauling the core architecture.
- Refactor: Involves updating a few bits of code here and there to optimize your application without changing its external behavior.
- Rearchitect: Often used for legacy applications that are no longer compatible with modern providers, describes completely rewriting a cloud-compatible application to fit into a cloud-native architecture.
- Retain: Opting to do nothing for now, keeping applications on-premise because they are not quite ready for full migration, or still providing some value without any upgrade.
- Rebuild: When legacy software no longer meets business needs or is no longer supported, you’ll want to leave the old application behind and rebuild it from scratch to fit the latest cloud technologies.
- Replace: When you don’t want to invest in developers to revive your aging application, consider fully replacing it with a new commercial SaaS.
Why partner with CGI to modernize your legacy IT systems?
We apply our expertise in legacy system transformation across industries. From modernizing the state payroll system for Colorado with the CGI Advantage ERP solution to automating refactoring of the Department of Defense system, our experts have seen it all.
If you want to lower operating and maintenance costs, quicken your response to market changes and see improved performance across the board, we are here to help. Our approach often prioritizes migrating to a cloud-native architecture to improve responsiveness to ever-changing market demands, while preserving critical business rules and minimizing risk.
Partner with us to update your infrastructure today
Contact us to start the process of legacy app modernization.
