Smooth Legacy Migration for Enterprises: Dream or Reality?

Regardless of external circumstances, enterprises continue to be involved in the legacy migration process. Companies change tech stacks, boost current solutions or replace desktop apps with the cloud. It will always be because the sky’s the limit.

Competition and a strong desire to rebuild processes for further business development support the migration era. However, sometimes enterprises face significant challenges moving this way. Legacy processes can fall like dominoes. Negotiation and bureaucracy can slow down a project. There is a risk of downtime. And yes, nobody guarantees that one migration project will change the business condition for the better beyond recognition.

Because of these reasons, companies abandon previous plans and make the biggest mistake ever - avoid legacy migration when it’s vital.

Scroll down to find out how enterprises can choose the proper approach to legacy migration and what steps could be taken to achieve efficient results.

What Actions Can Help Enterprises Cope with Legacy Migration Projects

Deep discovery

Enterprises should make sure that they need to migrate at all. This decision requires attention to business and market conditions.

Countless intertwined and complicated processes support large companies. Enterprises also have dozens of software products that are waiting for an upgrade.

If migration is needed, then where to start?

There’s no room for the rush. Here, the risk of a mistake in prioritization is fraught with significant losses for stakeholders.

JEVERA experts advise managers to use the APQC process classification framework. It will help them dive into a business situation and define priorities. By applying APQC, enterprises can set urgent measures, discover drawbacks that should be eliminated first, and define systems that cannot be improved painlessly.

You may also like: What Is The Purpose of APQC Process Classification Framework

Shadowing competitors

Managers should consider what challenges their competitors face and what solutions they apply.

Large business players should have an action plan for all possible migration scenarios since we are talking about significant investment and the experience of thousands of customers and employees.

The success and failure of enterprises allow a business to make the proper decisions and avoid others' mistakes.

Step-by-step movement

For an enterprise, a legacy migration is rather a marathon than a sprint. Try to upgrade all existing legacy solutions simultaneously, and at best, your global project will fail. In the worst case: it will lead to total downtime and even bankruptcy. Since all enterprise processes and software products are tied, it is hard to predict what outcomes a one-shot migration can have.

That’s why you should proceed with migration carefully and deliberately, improving the software base gradually.

Besides, one software migration project will not significantly change anything. For example, upgrading the HR management system will not ensure business skyrocketing.

It will make employee life easier, simplify the workload distribution and even affect the efficiency of departments operation. Anyway, sales or a loyal audience will not grow because other tools are responsible for it.

Sure, miracles happen. It depends on the upgraded software functionality. The main point is that one project will not change your enterprise globally.

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Not cloning, but improvement

If you transfer a legacy system to a new stack without changing its principles of operation and related business processes, it will not use its capacity. The primary purpose of a legacy migration process is to make software operations better than earlier because of new technologies and features. Yes, engineers and developers should add more features to the out-of-date software to make it efficient and competitive. Otherwise, the updated solution will remain a twin of the legacy system.

Architecture & connection

Product architecture and connections are crucial for legacy migrations since it’s a sort of prediction on how the updated software will operate. Architects should consider current business conditions and priorities to build proper architecture and connection points. Here, middleware usage can ensure a high-quality connection between system components.

This tool ensures uninterrupted data exchange between different software, reduces the load on legacy systems, and provides scalability. Because of middleware, managers can analyze step-by-step improvements and change digital transformation strategies following them.

By using middleware, enterprises gain flexibility, time, and business development in favorable conditions.

You may also like: What Middleware Is And How It Works

Data transfer

It is better to migrate data gradually, applying the above middleware to avoid negative consequences. This way, an enterprise will use both legacy and upgraded software simultaneously. Since it is impossible to test an improved solution perfectly, this approach provides the company with a backup plan when significant issues arise.

But sometimes, one-shot data transfer is vital. Communication service operators probably know what I mean. It is a tough row to hoe because engineers have to perform data transfer in live traffic conditions.

Sure, you can cope with the challenges with your in-house team. Lots of enterprises can boast of high-qualified IT departments. But sometimes employees have no relevant experience, or there's no time to organize training.

In such a case, companies should not be fighting legacy migration challenges alone to avoid this or any of the above difficulties. The reasonable solution here is to attract an experienced company or a team that performs legacy migration processes daily. This decision will significantly increase the chances to succeed.

If you aim to improve your current software, let us know. We will apply our expertise to make the migration process smooth and efficient.