Modernizing Legacy Applications for Manufacturing

Spread the love

Legacy manufacturing applications must be modernized by updating them to advanced technologies such as cloud platforms, AI automation, and IoT solutions in order to increase functionality, scalability, and user experience. The process entails evaluating present systems, deciding on a modernization approach (e.g., replatforming, reworking, or replacing), and carefully planning implementation to connect seamlessly with new systems, improve performance, and ensure user adoption without disrupting operations.

Legacy systems helped your firm get where it is today, but those applications, systems, and architecture will become obsolete over time, stifling your organization’s growth. Legacy systems grow antiquated, slowing down teams and making it more difficult to fulfill company goals.

Historical application modernization, also known as digital transformation, is expensive; yet, the longer you wait to modernize historical systems, the more complicated, costly, and resource-intensive the process will be.

Legacy systems are any software, technology, or process that a corporation utilizes that has become obsolete or ineffective. These systems have frequently been in use for many years and may not be actively supported or maintained by their original developers or distributors.

You will face similar issues and hazards when your apps and systems age and become legacy systems. Legacy systems typically run on outdated technology, lack integrations, are constrained, and frequently require additional documentation. As a result, they are more vulnerable to security breaches and more expensive to maintain or integrate with newer technologies or platforms.

What Is Legacy Application Modernization?

Legacy application modernization is the process of replacing out-of-date systems with more current cloud applications and solutions. Legacy application modernization may entail implementing new solutions to improve legacy systems, retiring legacy programs, or even transitioning to a completely new way of doing things.

Replacing tools and software that your team has been using for years (or even decades) may seem like a difficult endeavor — and it can be. However, working with out-of-date technologies might create more major IT difficulties for your staff and clients.

Modernizing old apps helps to eliminate the issues that emerge from employing outdated tools, causing a ripple effect throughout the entire digital workplace. Teams become more productive, employees and consumers have a better experience, and costs and risks decrease.

Updating obsolete legacy systems has significant organizational benefits, including:

Easier management and maintenance, reducing IT costs and dependency.
Improved automation and better process efficiency.
Better technical integrations and improved data management.
Access to more scalable SaaS applications.
Improved application performance and speed.
More efficiently meet evolving customer needs with more agile technology.

What is Legacy Software?

Legacy software refers to software infrastructure, applications, or systems that fit one or more of the following categories:

Software that has been discontinued by the vendor. In this case the software is called an end-of-life legacy system.
Software that is no longer supported or maintained by the vendor. Typically this happens when a business is locked into using a specific version of an application and that version is no longer supported.
Software that has been heavily modified or patched to meet specific business needs, but now can’t be supported because there are no properly trained staff to do so. This often happens when employees retire or leave the company that did the customization or maintenance work.

In general, legacy software systems are those that are actively used by a firm because they continue to meet (at least partially) a valid business need. The reality is that modernizing historical systems is often hard and expensive, thus many businesses choose to continue utilizing aging technology.

Businesses sometimes wait years, if not decades, before opting to update legacy software. As a result, they have a backlog of unresolved issues, years of creative workarounds and customisation that make them difficult to use and maintain, and they frequently lack the ability to scale with new business requirements.

All of this technological and organizational debt makes legacy application modernization a difficult and time-consuming process that you are unlikely to enjoy.

So, why bother with legacy modernization at all? Most businesses rely on one or more of the following reasons:

Productivity issues. Often the first red flag of an aging legacy system comes by way of declining productivity in staff that rely on it. In many cases, legacy systems are left mostly untouched for years, and during this time they may start to have more bugs or become slower and harder to use. This can easily result in lower productivity across an enterprise.
No longer meets business needs. Software that once met business needs may no longer be up to par. Business needs may come in the form of technical needs such as meeting certain security or compliance standards or in the form of business-centric needs such as being able to support business processes or data continuity requirements.
Security concerns. Legacy systems are often unsupported by the vendor or have been so heavily patched that they are unable to meet the modern security standards. This can be a main driver for legacy modernization efforts.

Pros and Cons of Legacy System Modernization?

Pros

Organizations are discovering that upgrading outdated apps is more of a need than a choice in today’s competitive digital landscape. Depending on the breadth of the modernization work, organizations can expect to experience benefits ranging from significant cost savings to increased worker productivity and job satisfaction.

In our experience, the following benefits are common for businesses who undergo software modernization:

Improved security. Legacy systems that are running unsupported software and are not being properly patched to address new security risks are leaving enterprises vulnerable to security breaches. This can be a risk to proprietary technology as well as customer and employee personal information.
Improved productivity. We often see scenarios where a select few are “master users” of a legacy software system, but the vast majority of employees find it difficult (or impossible) to use. This is not sustainable for any enterprise. Updating legacy systems can help businesses take advantage of modern technologies and the latest in design standards that promote ease of use and increased productivity.
Meet business needs more effectively. Even if your legacy application is “doing the job,” the reality is that it’s probably not really meeting business needs. Business needs have likely changed a few times since you launched your software systems years or even decades ago. Updating your software can help you meet your current business needs more effectively.
Reduced overhead. Many organizations find workarounds for legacy systems over the years. Sometimes these workarounds involve hours of extra manual work or they could involve using several other software tools in conjunction with the legacy application to make it work for the current business need. Much of this overhead can be eliminated with a strategic digital transformation effort that looks at the big picture.
Get a competitive edge. While you’re sticking with your legacy system, your competitors are updating theirs. And with the improved efficiencies that come with updated software, they’re leaving more time in their employees’ day for innovation that will give them the competitive edge.

Cons

As previously noted, legacy modernization initiatives can provide enormous long-term value for your business, but they can also expose an organization to dangers that must be carefully managed. Some of the most common hazards you should consider when performing legacy application modernization are:

Compatibility issues. Modernizing legacy software can cause new compatibility issues with other existing enterprise software systems. Be sure to carefully account for all necessary integration needs when conducting legacy application modernization.
Data access loss. When legacy software is modernized, there is a risk that data access may be lost in the process. This can happen if the data is not properly migrated to the new system, or if the new system is not compatible with the old data.
Adoption issues. With any change to working processes, you should expect some resistance. Be sure to carefully manage internal expectations, proactively ask for input from all involved parties, and offer robust training to minimize change resistance.
Performance issues. Modernizing legacy software can also lead to performance issues if the software design is not designed to adequately meet business needs.

Keep in mind that the software vendor that you choose to work with for your migration process should help you to evaluate your legacy systems and determine a modernization approach that helps to minimize risk for your enterprise.

7 Steps to Modernization of Legacy Applications

No legacy application modernization project is without hazards, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be mitigated. With a well-planned and implemented project plan, you’ll be able to maximize the ROI of updating your old systems while keeping expenses under control and technical challenges to a minimum.

1. Define the business case for modernization

Modernization efforts should always be based on a well-documented business case. This will help to orient all stakeholders on the project’s purpose and keep them engaged throughout its duration.

When creating a business case, it can be beneficial to include all key stakeholders within the organization, such as end-users of the current software, IT, support staff, project managers, and any other teams that interact with the current legacy application or will interface with the new modernized version.

To define your own business case for legacy modernization, you should consider:

The business side: business process support, business value, and scalability. If a legacy application is no longer meeting existing or new requirements from the business, a modernization strategy should be considered. Furthermore, if the legacy application is not scalable or flexible enough to help the business achieve its goals over the next few years, a modernization strategy should be considered.
The IT & engineering side: cost, risks, complexity, and support. A business case for modernization can also stem, in part, from the IT or engineering side. If legacy systems are costly to maintain, complex to support, or open up the business to security or compliance risks, it’s time to consider legacy application modernization.

As the project team gains clarity on the business case for modernization, it should be thoroughly documented and endorsed by all levels of management. Before delving into the how, make sure that everyone is on the same page about why.

2. Assessment of the legacy application

Once a business case has been created, it is time to formally evaluate the old application. The goal of this stage is to collect data on the legacy system, which will assist the project team in developing a strategic legacy application modernization plan in the next steps.

The assessment of the legacy application should include an audit of the following:

Utilization. Assess the current utilization statistics of the legacy software: how many users, usage time, common usage paths, and more. Consider mapping out the business processes that the software is utilized for, so you can ensure the modernization efforts meet the users’ needs.
Spend. Look across the organization to determine overall spend on the legacy system in areas such as software licensing, maintenance, 3rd party integrations, and technical support.
Infrastructure & integrations. Assess the health of the software infrastructure that the legacy system lives within. Determine how well direct or custom integrations with other software systems are working.
Risks. Conduct a thorough risk assessment of maintaining the legacy application as well as the risks associated with disrupting the business during modernization. These risks should be carefully weighed before proceeding.

After all areas have been thoroughly assessed, it’s time to move on to evaluating areas for improvement that can be addressed with legacy modernization project.

3. Identify and prioritize areas for improvement

In step one, you identified the business case for modernization. In this stage, you will examine the data acquired during the assessment in step #2 through the lens of your business case. Doing so will allow you to identify areas for improvement that should be prioritized over others.

For example, for one company, fixing security concerns may be the most important business case, therefore the details around the security issues will be of the utmost importance, but another corporation may discover that their business case for legacy application modernization is to boost worker productivity. In this instance, the parts of the assessment that deal with business processes and workflows will be quite important.

There are numerous methods for properly prioritizing tasks, but one that we advocate is the use of SWOT analysis. Each end-user type or stakeholder can conduct their own SWOT analysis, or it can be done collectively. Here are some suggested questions to aid you in this process:

Strengths. In what ways is the legacy system functioning well? What do users like about the software? How is the software aiding in streamlining workflows or processes? How is the application meeting budget goals?
Weaknesses. In what ways is the legacy system creating friction or slowing down processes? Has the system been end-of-lifed or no longer supported by the vendor? Are there data continuity issues?
Opportunities. Could efficiency be improved? Are there opportunities for better integrations with other software in the tech stack? Could manual processes be replaced with automated ones? Can the user experience be improved?
Threats. What security or compliance threats is the legacy software opening you up to? Is the legacy system a threat to staying competitive as an employer or business?

The goal of this work should be to identify and prioritize the areas of improvement that are most critical for the modernization project at hand.

4. Select a modernization strategy

As you prioritize areas for improvement, a solution may emerge for you. Some legacy software requires a complete replacement, while others can be redeployed to a cloud environment.

Your project’s requirements may or may not be evident. As a best practice, consider the priorities defined in the previous stage to select the optimal modernization plan for your project:

Encapsulate. This strategy focuses on extending the legacy systems’ current features by making them available as services with an API.
Rehost. With this strategy, there are no changes to the code, features or functions. Instead, the focus is on deploying the application’s components onto more modern infrastructure such as into a cloud environment.
Replatform. This strategy involves minimal code changes without any changes to the code structure, features or functions. The application would be migrated to a new runtime platform.
Refactor. With this strategy the focus is on removing technical debt and improving non-functional attributes by restructuring and optimizing the existing code.
Rearchitect. With this strategy, there is a clear focus on altering the code to make it work more effectively within a new application architecture. There might also be significant changes to the functionality.
Rebuild. Not to be confused with replacing, this strategy involves keeping the original scope of the legacy application while redesigning and/or rewriting the application components from the ground up.
Replace. In our final strategy, the application is fully replaced with an altogether new and different application that is built using new requirements.

5. Develop a modernization roadmap

After deciding on a modernization plan, it’s time to flesh it out into a comprehensive roadmap. The modernization plan should include an overview of the stages of the software modernization project as well as milestones that will be met during development.

The plan should be prepared in a way that both technical and business people can understand and use as a reference. Typically, you’ll want to offer details about the project as follows:

Software development approach. We advise an agile approach to breakdown the project into short, manageable sprints. Regardless of the approach, it should be documented here.
Schedule overview. Provide a high-level look at the development sprints and the milestones that will be achieved. Typically with an agile approach, we recommend planning for two-week sprints.
Dependencies. Document any dependencies related to the modernization effort that could impact development itself as well as deployment of the new application.
Budget and resourcing. Assign internal and external resources for software development, project management, and testing.

6. Replace outdated components & implement new ones

Now it’s time to put the modernization roadmap into action by starting software development. The software development process can be divided into two stages: implementing new program components and updating outdated ones.

To incorporate new application components, the development team must first choose the suitable technological platforms to use. The modernization approach will determine the appropriate technological platforms. It is worthwhile to examine current technologies like Django, as well as enterprise software platforms like AWS Quicksight.

To replace outdated components, the development team should consider the most effective manner to do so while minimizing risk. It’s a difficult line to walk. It may suggest that not all components will be replaced in the same manner, or that certain components will be replaced entirely.

Some of our top tips for managing implementation are:

Embrace a cloud-native approach to improve extensibility and agility long term. onsider using a platform like AWS Quicksight to speed up development.
Use industry-trusted technologies like Django rather than niche, untested technologies.
Utilize an agile approach when building new application components. Use standup meetings to maintain alignment and ensure successful, on-time delivery of new software.
Reference the modernization roadmap throughout development to ensure the team is achieving documented goals and schedule milestones.
Work with a software development partner you trust to guide technical decisions throughout this stage.

7. Perform application testing and validation

After all new components have been built out and each legacy component has been replaced with its modern equivalent, it’s time to perform application testing and validation:

Code testing. The development team should conduct baseline code testing on all new and modified components to ensure it executes as expected.
Data integrity testing. This is really critical for enterprise systems where there may be “dark data” being stored in places unknown to the organization. It’s imperative that data integrity is checked for all business processes to ensure data hasn’t been lost.
User acceptance testing. UAT should be conducted with all user groups to ensure the new software system meets expectations and is working as expected.

Each of these testing steps is crucial to ensuring the legacy application modernization project’s technical and business success. As issues develop, they should be placed to a queue and addressed before deployment.