You can't have a conversation about digital transformation without also talking about legacy systems and technical debt. IT leaders are forever dealing with legacy systems and it's usually hard to know how to deal with them. The wrong solution and you run the very real risk of creating more technical debt. Something that will in turn need to be maintained in years to come, when the next CIO is in charge.
In a 2023 report by SoftwareOne a whopping seventy-two percent of all respondents believe that their organisation's digital transformation efforts are lagging due to technical debt. Additionally 51% cite a complex legacy IT infrastructure as one of their key challenges over the next year.
Legacy systems usually form the backbone of critical business operations. These systems were designed in an era before cloud computing, APIs, and automation. The impulse is often to replace them; an impulse that loses headway once you get into the solution "weeds" of replicating legacy infrastructure. It's not always feasible or wise due to costs, complexity, and disruption risks.
There's no quick fix when it comes to legacy systems. Businesses can and should adopt a long term strategic approach that blends modernisation and smart interoperability solutions; and if appropriate, and feasible, a phased sunsetting of the systems in question.
This article explores how CIOs and IT leaders can sidestep some of the problems inherent in digital transformation, weigh replacement against maintenance, and leverage an API approach to breathe new life into old systems.
Sidestepping Knowledge Gaps
A big challenge organisations face with legacy systems is the loss of technical knowledge. Over time typical churn among key personnel can leave gaps in expertise needed to comfortably manage or upgrade systems. This creates a high level of business continuity risk when considering complex changes or modifications to existing workflows.
Obviously risks can be mitigated through training, detailed documentation, and or relying on external vendors or experts to map out how these systems function. However the ideal scenario is to decouple these concerns, so your digital transformation strategy can still progress whilst investing in longer term strategies around the management of legacy systems.
This can be done by introducing modernisation around legacy systems, via APIs or middleware engines, that effectively mask the complexities of underlying systems.
A corollary of this is minimising delivery risks for legacy system consuming development teams. Disparate legacy systems often require development teams to navigate different architectures, creating bottlenecks. By introducing intermediary API layers organisations can unify access to legacy data.
This is exactly what we did for a global C-Corp client, on a project called Unity Bridge, full details here.
Picking Your Battles: Replacing Versus Maintaining
When it comes to legacy systems, one of the most critical decisions is whether to replace or maintain them. Again this isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition.
CIOs must weigh up the potential disruption and costs of replacement against the reliability and current performance of these systems. Not to mention quantify the delivery risks of proposed new systems.
You could argue that legacy systems underpinning non-critical functions and performing adequately, should simply be maintained. Providing they don't impede innovation or add unnecessary operational risk. Conversely, systems that pose security vulnerabilities, have high maintenance costs, or lack vendor support should likely be prioritised for modernisation or replacement.
Ultimately systems are there to support the execution of business. So when developing a strategy of modernisation and technical debt reduction, start with the business needs. Assess those systems which are most critical to your company’s long-term business goals.
Modernising Legacy Applications with Interoperable Solutions
In our experience the first step in modernising legacy systems is rarely a complete overhaul. Instead, organisations can implement interoperable solutions that integrate legacy systems with modern technologies. There's a plethora of ways this can be achieved. Through APIs, through middleware providing data agnostic mapping and access, or micro services (on-prem or cloud) that interact with older infrastructure and facilitate new workflows.
Interoperability allows legacy systems to remain part of the digital transformation journey. Again the example of APIs exposing legacy data and functions to cloud based applications. Which allows you to develop new automated workflows. By enabling communication between old and new systems, businesses can tap into the best of both worlds — maintaining legacy infrastructure without sacrificing innovation.
The Boon of APIs
APIs are often heralded as the solution for enabling legacy systems to interact with modern cloud-based and micro-service architectures. By acting as an intermediary between legacy systems and new digital services, APIs provide a bridge that allows older infrastructure to participate in a company’s digital transformation without needing a full replacement. APIs can unlock legacy data for use in cloud applications, mobile platforms, and modern dashboards. APIs can be used to mask the complexity of legacy systems, allowing businesses to focus on the customer experience and improved workflows.
Technologies like Hasura (a federated api platform) help developers to focus on delivering strategic business applications rather than worrying about how to integrate with various legacy systems. Read more here about how we've leveraged Hasura in our client projects.
Automation - the Golden Goose
Automation is the "golden goose" of modern business strategy. It promises lower operational costs, increased productivity, and a superior customer experience. For organisations burdened by manual processes in their legacy systems, automation can significantly reduce operational overhead.
For example, businesses that still rely on manual payment processing—such as taking payments through a call centre—can leverage APIs and middleware to enable automated, self-service payment portals. This reduces call centre costs, increases payment efficiency, and enables customers to make payments 24/7.
An example of this is a solution Flowmoco provided for a Fortune 1000 partner of ours. We integrated a legacy IBM AS400 system with a containerised middleware solution allowing us to introduce automated payment processing. By building a bridge between their old infrastructure and a new payment gateway, the company enabled customers to make real-time payments without manual intervention.
More details in this case study.
Smart interoperability solutions like these give legacy systems a new lease on life. They enable the automation of critical business processes without the risks associated with full system replacement.