Signs You Need to Modernize Legacy Applications

Modernize a legacy application when it slows change, or raises risk and cost, faster than it earns its keep. The signs you need to modernize legacy applications fall into three groups: change gets slow, skills and support run out, and staff work around the application.

Modernizing means changing an application so it is easier to change, connect and support; changing old applications step by step is the job this article leads up to. Moving an application unchanged to new hosting is, however, a different job, covered under moving applications unchanged. For what can go wrong in such a move, read the risks of moving legacy applications to the cloud. Here we cover the signs you need to modernize legacy applications, what they cost and when they hit. We leave out how to modernize and which option to pick. For choosing between options, read how to pick a route for each application.

What Do the Signs You Need to Modernize Legacy Applications Cost the Business?

Each sign costs the business time, risk, people or money, and each lands on a different desk. Age by itself is not the test: an old application that is easy to change, well supported and connected can stay as it is. To judge one application against that test, use a scored checklist for assessing an application before you modernize it. The table lists the eight signs in the order this article takes them.

Signs You Need to Modernize Legacy Applications When Change Gets Slow

The first group shows up in the delivery calendar. For example, a small change that should take days takes weeks, and few teams plan a release with confidence.

Sign 1: a small change takes days or weeks. Without automated tests, each change tends to need hand checking, so releases may be rare and large. The cost is the requests the business stops making. A simple check follows below.

Sign 2: fragile links and repeat faults. A change in one area breaks another, and the same fault returns after each fix. That points to a design problem rather than bad luck, because the parts may depend on each other in ways nobody has mapped. The cost is engineer hours per incident, multiplied by how frequently incidents come back.

Sign 3: growth plans capped. New customers, regions or products wait on the application, so the business loses speed to market. Coupled code and fragile upgrades can make each addition slower than the last.

One fear sits behind all three. Change without tests feels dangerous, because nobody can prove that yesterday’s behaviour survived, and a rollback plan may not be written. Teams may then avoid change, which makes the next change larger.

Signs You Need to Modernize Legacy Applications When Skills and Support Run Out

The second group is about who can still look after the application. The cost here is risk that builds quietly until a date or a resignation makes it visible.

Sign 4: support has ended under the application. The platform, database or server beneath it no longer gets security fixes from its maker. The cost is exposure to attack and, in our view, to audit findings. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre explains that once developers stop providing security updates for an obsolete product, exploitable weaknesses become more likely to be known to attackers.

Sign 5: the builder or vendor can no longer help. The supplier has closed, moved on or dropped the product, and the latest source code may be missing. The cost is that there is no one to call when it fails.

Sign 6: one or two people hold the rules. Knowledge leaves with them, and new hires may need weeks before they can touch the code. The cost is key-person risk. In our view as the authors, hiring for older platforms in India and the GCC may be harder than for current ones. That is a judgement we have not measured, and we give no figure for it.

Data centres raise the same question about hardware and capacity, but this article stays with applications; see the same question for data centres.

Signs You Need to Modernize Legacy Applications When Staff Work Around Them

The third group is visible on the shop floor and in the finance office. People build their own routes around what the application can’t do.

Sign 7: side spreadsheets, exports and re-keying. Staff export a report, fix it in a spreadsheet and type the result into another system. Every re-key can add an error, so the cost is staff time and wrong data, and the error reaches whoever relies on the number.

Sign 8: no way to connect. Partner and tool links run on manual files, while desktop-only screens keep staff at their desks. The cost is a running manual effort each month, plus digital services, such as a customer portal or a mobile screen for field staff, that wait to start.

These two signs are easy to miss, because the workaround looks like a normal job. Ask who touches the same data twice, and then the list appears. Once the signs are clear, follow twelve steps for changing one application, from goal to handover.

Cost of Waiting: Where Does the Business Pay?

Waiting is a decision, and it costs in four places. We give no figures, since we have no source for one that fits firms in India or the GCC.

The cost also depends on when you act. In our view as the authors, a change rushed under a deadline can cost more than one planned in good time, since the team has no room to test or to roll back. That is a judgement we have not measured.

When Do These Signs Start to Hurt?

The signs hurt at four moments, and in each one a person meets the cost. Regulator audits and vendor support dates are two dates that can force the question, and a firm in India or the GCC may plan around both. The table shows what breaks and what the business sees. It makes no claim about any named regulator’s rule.

These moments also line up with the signs. A new product request is sign 3 showing itself, and an audit that raises the system again follows sign 4. A key person leaving is sign 6, and a vendor end-of-support date is sign 4 again, now with a date on it.

Stuck With the Old System? How Many Signs Mean It Is Time

Judge each application on its own. One sign alone may only need watching; two or three signs together raise urgency, and in our view each makes the others costlier. We give no scale and no points, as a number would claim a precision that this kind of judgement doesn’t have.

Get specialist help when signs you need to modernize legacy applications come from two different groups in the same application, or when a moment from the table is already on the calendar. This article does not cover the steps or the choice between options, but for which applications to modernize first and by which route, read that article next.

This article comes from a vendor: Signisys provides application modernization services, and the box below holds our offer.

Signs You Need to Modernize Legacy Applications FAQ: Questions Answered