Everything evolves with time. Change is inevitable, else technology would’ve become redundant way back!

Upgrades are new eyes on the same face, but they surely improve the view.

Holding the similar line of thought, we have touched upon the magnanimous topic of App Migration, and why it is preferred over Legacy Application, when ‘change is the only constant’.

The term ‘legacy’ here does not refer to the functionality the applications deliver, but aging software and hardware infrastructure that is expensive to maintain and deters change.

While these legacy applications have served as a backbone to business purposes for years, in the modern world, they cease to perform certain operations efficiently.

Hence, App Migration is no longer a matter of ‘if’ these days, it is of ‘when’.

It is a process of porting application programs from existing operating environment to another, more compatible and stable environment.

So, when do you sense the need to migrate your app?

App Migration is a tedious task, to start with. It should only be commenced when the existing operating environment cannot provide the support as desired vis-à-vis the current dynamics of technology.

These signs should help you decide whether your app needs migration –

• Inherent necessity to upgrade functionality and accessibility
• Compelling Business needs
• Rise of modern and destructive technologies
• Regulations imposed by the government over technology usage

Once the need is addressed, the next step is to find a suitable way to go about it. We have outlined the three popular App Migration solutions here –

• Total Rewrite: As the name suggests, this option involves rewriting the entire legacy application on newer platforms. This option involves large design and programming efforts, hence, greater risk. Additionally, the existing system will also need maintenance and modification with the evolution of business, along with replicating it in the new system as well.Overall, it causes the developers to aim at a moving target, resulting into increased timeline of the project.

• Buy Pre-Built Solution: While a pre-built solution can be the ideal solution for some applications, this option is actually riskier than the rewrite option. This is because of two reasons – operational disruption due to a completely new way of working, and gauging whether the solution is suitable or not.

• Legacy Migration: This option is much speedier than Total Rewrite and the operational risks and costs is also low compared to the second option, making it the ideal app migration solution for all legacy applications.

Moreover, the technologies to perform legacy app migration have also been upgraded in the last decade.

This is majorly because the issues faced by legacy applications were so grave that the apps found their continuity only through app migration.

Business Issues of Legacy Applications

The business ecosystems in every industry today are experiencing unprecedented changes due to rapid digitalization of products and services. The new generation business models enabled by modern technologies like cloud, MVC .NET, and SalesForce are helping startups like Slack, Uber, and TransferWise thrive continuously among Born Digital consumers.

So, in order to stay competitive, the migration of legacy applications to newer platforms has become the need of the hour.

Moreover, the legacy systems possess major threats to IT Enterprises on several levels:

Resource Cost: Legacy platforms generally require more power, maintenance, and administrative attention to maintain uptimes.

Availability Risk: As IT professionals come and go, so does the expertise required to keep a given legacy system stay operational. Due to lack of modern day tech-freaks into this area, only limited professionals possess the detailed knowledge of legacy platforms.

Security Risk: Without network engineer keeping track of and patching vulnerabilities, and hackers are eager to exploit openings, posing a risk to IT security.

Standards Drift: Implementing a standardized set of technologies becomes nearly impossible as the trails of legacy platforms contain a myriad of old technologies that are not compliant with today’s standard ones, resulting into little interoperability and data sharing capability with other systems.

Functional Upgradation: Same can be inferred about implementing new functionalities, as often it becomes impossible to implement certain functionalities or features in legacy applications due to outdated platforms.

In summary, running a legacy application in today’s modern era is inflexible and too costly. Therefore, it’s best to migrate your legacy application to newer platforms.

To conclude, read through the benefits of App Migration, so you can take an informed decision regarding your current app.

Benefits of App Migration

• The performance of the migrated application is the first major difference users will experience, resulting in increased productivity.

• Integration with other applications becomes much easier and faster using modern technologies.

• The time taken to make changes reduces significantly and the delay between request and response also decreases significantly.

• The Migrated applications scale much more easily, allowing systems to grow quickly with the business.

• Third-party integrations such as search functionality, social network sharing features, etc. are also possible due to modern technologies.

Conclusion

All in all, Legacy platforms mar the overall performance and cost of IT infrastructure. Given that legacy platforms must seek retirement in the modern world in order to generate expected ROI, a complete app migration is imperative.

However, to fully leverage the benefits of application migration, IT organisations need to formulate and align a migration strategy with an execution plan that gives sustainable and measurable benefits.

Through a holistic approach, we can provide support for all stages of application migration, helping you envision, architect, deploy, and operate workloads more effectively and efficiently.

Migrate better, Integrate best!