The term legacy application migration refers to the process of transitioning outdated and often outdated software applications to modern systems, platforms and architectures. The legacy applications are typically built on older technologies, languages, and infrastructure that may no longer meet the evolving needs of businesses in today’s digital landscape. These applications are not able to meet the day to day challenges and become a burden on the organization and hinder operational productivity, scalability and efficiency, making it essential to migrate them to more modern and sustainable environments.

The process of legacy application migration involves transferring the application’s functionality, data and business process from the existing environment to a new system while ensuring minimal disruption to business operations and paving a way for adding new features and functionalities. The primary goal for migrating legacy application is o leverage the benefits of modern technologies, such as cloud computing, microservices architecture, and scalable infrastructure, to enhance the application’s performance, security, flexibility and maintainability.

As stated above, legacy applications pose several challenges and limitations that may impede your company’s growth and competitiveness. Below are some of the reasons legacy app migration is important:

Technological Outdatedness: Legacy applications often rely on outdated technologies, programming languages and infrastructure that are no longer supported or compatible with modern systems, leading to difficulties in maintaining, updating and integrating the applications with other software or services.

Scalability and Performance: Struggling to handle the increasing workloads or adapt to the changing business demands, migrating legacy application to modern platforms paves a way for scalability, allowing application to handle large volume of data and improving performance with the help of optimized architectures and technologies.

Vulnerable to Security: Older applications often lack robust security features, making them vulnerable to data breaches and cyber attacks. Migrating to modern system helps you in implementing advanced security measures, such as encryption, authentication, and regular security updates to protect sensitive business data.

Impact on User Experience and Productivity: Outdated applications have outdated user interfaces and complex workflows that may negatively impact user experience and productivity. Once you start the migration process, it allows for redesigning user interface, improve usability and enhance overall user satisfaction.

Integration & Collaboration: Due to the limited or no capability to integrate with newer technologies, it is important to migrate legacy applications as modernizing these applications enable seamless integration with other plugins, softwares, third party services & APIs enabling organizations to leverage emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and internet of things (IoT).

• Define Clear Objectives

Defining clear objective is crucial in any business endeavour, including legacy application migration. By clearly articulating your objectives, you can align the efforts, make informed decisions and measure the success of your initiatives. You can start by aligning your business strategy by identifying how legacy application migration will fit into your business goals and vision. You can determine the specific outcomes that you want to achieve by migrating your legacy application such as improving operational efficiency, enhancing customer experience, or increasing revenue.

You should also consider the expectations of various stakeholders including executives, managers, administrators, end users and customers. Your objectives should also include ensuring data integrity throughout the migration process, minimising the disruption to business operations. When you consider migrating your app to modern systems, you should ensure that you achieve scalability, adaptability and integration with emerging technologies, ensuring your migrated application supports future growth, evolving customer experience and technological advancements. Set objectives that promote continuous monitoring, analysis and enhancement of your migrated systems to ensure they remain aligned with evolving business needs.

• Assess the Existing Application

Before you embark on a journey of legacy application migration process, you need to conduct a thorough assessment of the existing application, providing valuable insights on application’s architecture, functionality, dependencies and features. Identify the underlying technologies, programming languages and frameworks used. This will help you determine the complexity of the migration process and the impact on other systems or services. Also, identify the core business processes supported by the application and evaluate how effectively it fulfils your day-to-day requirements. This evaluation will help you prioritize functionality enhancements in the new system.

You can gather feedback from the end user of your legacy application and understand their pain points, usability challenges and expectations on the desired features. You can then identify the opportunities to improve the user experience, streamline workflows, enhance usability in the new system. Through proper documentation you can summarize the strengths, weakness and areas for improvement thus providing clear insights for addressing the identified issues and aligning the migration strategy with the goals of the organization.

• Choose the Right Migration Approach

It is crucial to select the right migration approach for a successful and efficient transition. This approach depends on various factors such as the application’s complexity, business specific requirements, time constraints and availability of the resources. You can either opt for the Lit & Shift approach that involves the application as-is from the existing environment to a new infrastructure without making any significant modifications to the application or you can opt for Refactoring approach that involves modifying the application code, design or core architecture to leverage the capabilities of the new platform. Refactoring will allow you to take full advantage of the cloud native features, scalability and performance improvements.

If your legacy application is highly complex, outdated or not aligned with current business needs you can consider rebuilding the application from scratch with use of modern technologies, frameworks and architecture while retaining the existing functionality and requirements. When you are choosing the migration approach you should consider factors such as budget, timeline, resource availability, business requirements and future scalability striking a balance between speed, risk, cost and long term benefits.

• Plan for Data Migration

Data migration is the most important and critical aspect of legacy application that requires careful planning to ensure a smooth data transfer from the existing system to the new environment. You can start by identifying the types of data that need to be migrated such as employee data, customer information, transaction data, configurations, or any other relevant data. This will help you determine the specific data fields, formats and structures required in the new system. Ask your legacy application migration vendor to establish a data validation strategy in order to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the migrated data. You can define the validation checks such as field level validations, data integration checks. You can perform thorough testing of the migrated data to identify and rectify any issues or discrepancies.

In order to minimise the disruption to your organisation’s day-to-day operations, you can determine the appropriate timing and sequence for data migration. You can then plan for a scheduled downtime or cutover period during which the data migration will take place. You should also prioritize data backup and establish recovery mechanisms during the migration process. By following a well-structured plan for data migration, you can minimize the risks associated with data transfer, ensure data integrity, and facilitate a successful transition to the new system.

• Opt for Cloud

If you are considering for legacy app migration you should definitely opt for cloud computing services. There are numerous reasons on why it is wise to use cloud technology. Cost savings is an important benefit of cloud services as there is no need to there is no need to spend money on storage space and buy expensive programs. You will also be able to cut the operational expenses as your specialists and system administrators will not need to spend any time on backups and hardware maintenance. You can pay for the cloud resources that you use.

You can also automatically increase the cloud capacity, if needed, to quickly respond to peak demands. Cloud technology ensures better collaboration in real time. You can access the data from different locations and on multiple devices. Additionally, reliable cloud providers regularly upgrade their services ensuring safety from cyberattacks. Embracing the cloud, with its scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency, can provide numerous benefits for your business. It enables seamless access to resources, promotes collaboration, and supports innovation.

Legacy application migration is a critical step in digitally transforming your business, enabling you to leverage modern technologies and unlock new opportunities. However, successful migration requires careful planning and consideration of various factors. By following the key steps outlined in this blog, you can navigate the process of legacy application migration effectively and ensure a smooth transition to a modern, scalable, and secure environment.

As each organization's migration journey is unique, it is essential to tailor the approach to your specific needs and circumstances. Engage relevant stakeholders, leverage the expertise of migration specialists if needed, and allocate sufficient time and resources to ensure a successful migration process.

Having the expertise and an experience in helping clients for their legacy app migration, Zizbey helps you with proper planning, execution, and support to lay the foundation for your business's digital transformation. Embrace the opportunities that come with modernization and empower your organization to thrive in today's rapidly evolving digital landscape.