Legacy Application Modernisation

Services Issues

The bad of reengineering projects and why we still speak about them Reengineering projects have a reputation for being largely expensive, taking up to several years, and possibly causing long system downtimes. Moreover, the risks and benefits of reengineering activities are hardly predictable beforehand due to the incomplete legacy software documentation. However, legacy software is often business-critical, so often you cannot simply remove these too demanding and rigid obsolete systems. Replacing them with SaaS is rarely an option as it lacks agility in customization required by large companies with complex business processes. And while another option of developing a new application from scratch can be tempting, such projects are vulnerable to multiple risks inherent to new software creating. Moreover, you can lose essential hidden functionality not mentioned in the specification and not obvious to applications’ users or administrators as it couldn’t be accessed through an interface or a command sequence. Common risks of a reengineering project The loss of managerial support – senior managers can easily lose interest in supporting reengineering projects and make them first in line for funding termination in case of budget cuts. The reason is that the damage of legacy systems is not vivid, and the benefits of reengineering projects are remote. Thus, it’s important to clearly communicate the expected improvements and show the results as early as possible (this goal can be achieved, for example, by opting for incremental or iterative reengineering if possible). Effort and cost estimation risks – the incomplete documentation makes legacy applications quite dark horses, and the lack of experience in legacy estimation processes on the part of the project team may lead to incorrect predictions about the project costs, expected ROI and needed efforts. What can simplify the reengineering task? Maximum automation. Automation is what rocks and offers fewer risks and lower costs for the reengineering project. The project team can use ready and custom-made automated tools for reverse engineering activities (to investigate the application structure), code structuring, and code modularization. However, automation doesn’t help to significantly reduce project time as the complex algorithms used for re-structuring are too demanding even for modern hardware. Involvement of knowledgeable employees. With the help of the current support staff or proficient users from relevant non-IT departments, the developers will much faster restore the requirements of a legacy application. Sample reengineering workflow The reengineering process model may look as follows. At the planning stage, you: Identify the key modernization drivers and formulate your needs for the target application. Sort out the required investments, assess the expected ROI and analyze the project feasibility. Form the reengineering team from in-house resources or hire a reliable service provider (including the project manager, modernization engineers, application maintenance team, etc.). Develop the modernization roadmap. At the development stage, the reengineering team proceeds to: Extract source code and database structures. Gather all valuable data (available documents, requirements hidden in code, and employees’ knowledge). Reverse engineer the application. Re-document the application. Introduce further enhancements (re-structuring, modularization, interfaces). Optionally reengineer the database. Test the reengineered application. Implement the application. Validate the application’s work in the production environment. Reengineering is an important part of software evolution Reengineering is almost inevitable if you want to significantly reduce maintenance costs for your legacy software, gain a competitive advantage with its extended reach and functionality as well as get a good ground for further modernization activities like moving software to the cloud and splitting a legacy application into microservices. However, reengineering of legacy software is an intensive activity with high costs and often unknown results, so it is hard to decide on. To justify expected substantial efforts, consider for the reengineering project only business-critical applications that yet have a potential to stay with you in the long run, and make sure the reengineering costs are balanced against the profit you plan to achieve from their improvement

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