Legacy System

Legacy Systems
 Older software systems that remain vital to an organisation
INTRODUCTION
 Socio-technical systems that have been developed using old or

obsolete technology.
 Crucial to the operation of a business and it is often too risky to

discard these systems
 Bank customer accounting system;
 Aircraft maintenance system.
 Legacy systems constrain new business processes and consume a high

proportion of company budgets.
DEFINITION
 A legacy system is an old computer system or application program

that continues to be used, typically because it still functions for the
users' needs, even though newer technology is available.
 OR
 Obsolete computer system that may still be in use because its data
cannot be changed to newer or standard formats, or its application
programs cannot be upgraded.
REASONS WHY WE KEEP LEGACY SYSTEMS
Organizations can have compelling reasons for keeping a legacy system,

such as:
1) The system works satisfactorily, and the owner sees no reason for
changing it.
2) The costs of redesigning or replacing the system are prohibitive

because it is large, and/or complex.
3) Retraining on a new system would be costly in lost time and money,

compared to the anticipated appreciable benefits of replacing it (which
may be zero).
4) The way that the system works is not well understood. Such a situation
can occur when the designers of the system have left the organization
and the system has either not been fully documented or
documentation has been lost.
5) The user expects that the system can easily be replaced when this
becomes necessary.
6) Different parts of the system have been implemented by different

teams. There is, therefore, no consistent programming style across the
whole system.
7) Part or all of the system may be implemented using an obsolete

programming language. It may be difficult to find staff that has
knowledge of these languages and expensive outsourcing of system
maintenance may be required.
8) System documentation is often inadequate and out-of-date. In some

cases, the only documentation is the system source code. Sometimes
the source code has been lost and only the executable version of the
system is available.
9) The system requires close to 100 percent availability, so it cannot be

taken out of service, and the cost of designing a new system with a
similar availability level is high. Examples include systems to handle
customers' accounts in banks, computer reservation systems, air
traffic control, energy distribution (power grids), nuclear power plants,
and military defense installations.
PROBLEMS
Legacy systems are considered to be potentially problematic by many

software engineers for several reasons (for example, see Bisbal et al., 1999).
 Legacy systems often run on obsolete (and usually slow) hardware,

and spare parts for such computers may become increasingly difficult
to obtain.
 Integration with newer systems may also be difficult because new

software may use completely different technologies.
 If legacy software runs on only antiquated hardware, the cost of

maintaining the system may eventually outweigh the cost of replacing
both the software and hardware unless some form of emulation or
backward compatibility allows the software to run on new hardware.
 These systems can be hard to maintain, improve, and expand because
there is a general lack of understanding of the system; the staff who
were experts on it have retired or forgotten what they knew about it,
and staff who entered the field after it became "legacy" never learned
about it in the first place. This can be worsened by lack or loss of
documentation.
STRATEGIC APPROACHES DEALING LEGACY SYSTEMS
 Organisations that rely on legacy systems must choose a strategy for

evolving these systems
 Scrap the system completely and modify business processes so

that it is no longer required;
 Continue maintaining the system;
 Transform the system by re-engineering to improve its

maintainability;
 Replace the system with a new system.
Scrap the system completely: This option should be chosen when the
system is not making an effective contribution to business processes. This
occurs when business processes have changed since the system was
installed and are no longer completely dependent on the system. For
example in some business environment all the mainframe systems need to
be replaced by the PCs.
Keep the system as it is but continue with regular maintenance: This

option should be chosen when the system works well, is fairly stable, and the
system users do not request many changes.
Transform/Re-engineer the system to improve its maintainability:

This option should be chosen when the system quality was affected
negatively by regular changes and where regular changes to the system are
still required. This process may include developing new interface components
so that the original system can work with other, newer systems.
Replace the part of the system with a new one: This option should be
chosen when business cannot be continued with older systems then either
some parts of older systems or all parts need to be replaced by the new
systems.
Ideally, objective assessment should be used with a legacy system. For

example, if two businesses merge, the systems used by the most politically
powerful partner will usually be used by the merged business and other
systems may be scrapped.
ASSESSMENT OF LEGACY SYSTEMS
The assessment of the legacy system can be made using two factors:
relative business value (business perspective) and system quality
(technical perspective).
From a business perspective, we have to decide whether the

business really needs the system. From a technical perspective, we have
to assess the quality of the application software and the system’s support
software and hardware.
1) Low quality, low business value
Keeping these systems in operation will be expensive and the rate of the
return to the business will be fairly small. These systems should be scrapped.
2) Low quality, high business value
These systems are making an important business contribution so they cannot

be scrapped. However, their quality means that it is expensive to maintain
them. These systems should be re-engineered to improve their quality or
replaced, if a suitable system is available.
3) High quality, low business value
These are systems that don’t contribute much to the business but that may
not be very expensive to maintain. It is not worth replacing these systems so
normal system maintenance may be continued so long as no expensive
changes are required and the system hardware is operational. If expensive
changes become necessary, they should be scrapped.
4) High quality, high business value
These systems have to be kept in operation, but their high quality means that
you don’t have to invest in transformation or system replacement. Normal
system maintenance should be continued

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Legacy Systems

 Older software systems that remain vital to an organisation

 Socio-technical systems that have been developed using old or

 Crucial to the operation of a business and it is often too risky to

 Bank customer accounting system;

 Aircraft maintenance system.

 Legacy systems constrain new business processes and consume a high

 A legacy system is an old computer system or application program

REASONS WHY WE KEEP LEGACY SYSTEMS

Organizations can have compelling reasons for keeping a legacy system,

2) The costs of redesigning or replacing the system are prohibitive

3) Retraining on a new system would be costly in lost time and money,

6) Different parts of the system have been implemented by different

7) Part or all of the system may be implemented using an obsolete

8) System documentation is often inadequate and out-of-date. In some

9) The system requires close to 100 percent availability, so it cannot be

Legacy systems are considered to be potentially problematic by many

 Legacy systems often run on obsolete (and usually slow) hardware,

 Integration with newer systems may also be difficult because new

 If legacy software runs on only antiquated hardware, the cost of

 Organisations that rely on legacy systems must choose a strategy for

 Scrap the system completely and modify business processes so

 Continue maintaining the system;

 Transform the system by re-engineering to improve its

 Replace the system with a new system.

Keep the system as it is but continue with regular maintenance: This

Transform/Re-engineer the system to improve its maintainability:

Ideally, objective assessment should be used with a legacy system. For

From a business perspective, we have to decide whether the

1) Low quality, low business value

2) Low quality, high business value

These systems are making an important business contribution so they cannot

3) High quality, low business value

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