The discussion in this blog assumes that you have made the difficult choice to transform your decades old AS/400 Legacy applications and have pledged to allocate the resources, time and funding to the effort.
It also assumes you have completed a Legacy Audit of your AS/400 application portfolio and ecosystem and now have a strategic plan for a phased digital transformation project with priorities and application dependencies.
So, what’s next?
There are four primary options available for modernizing critical legacy systems. You can:
- Replace them with off-the-shelf packages or SaaS solutions
- Rewrite them from scratch on a leading-edge platform in a modern language
- Move them to an emulated COBOL or RPG environment in the cloud (Lift and Shift)
- Migrate them to equivalent functionality in a modern language on a leading-edge platform
Which option is best for your legacy application? (*see Benefit Comparison Chart below for benefits of each)
1. Replace
This option can be quite effective when modernizing a small percentage of non-mission critical legacy applications. If the functionality of your legacy application is relatively generic and not a strategic differentiator of your organization, and an off-the shelf package is available with similar functionality, this may be a good option. Applications that perform accounting, human resources or CRM functions are good candidates for replacement with off-the-shelf or SaaS based software. Implementing off-the-shelf solutions will almost certainly create disruption as users will be required to alter their workflow in order to conform to the functionality of the new application. This option also involves significant risk that the new software will not provide all of the essential functionality of the existing system.
2. Rewrite
Many years ago, this option was a popular choice for modernizing critical, strategic applications when companies had invested significantly in the business rules that supported their operations and when they had the luxury of resources, time and funding. In the past 10-15 years however, 90% of these enormous projects have run substantially over budget and behind schedule and half of them have failed and were abandoned. Many of the multi-million-dollar debacles were headline news while some put their organizations out of business. For these reasons, today very few organizations launch this type of wholesale rewrite project for digital transformation.
3. Move or “Lift and Shift”
This option has gained attention in recent years because it is a relatively straightforward way to enable legacy applications to run in the cloud. A number of government agencies and corporations have successfully migrated their mainframe workloads to the cloud using this approach. As a result, they have benefitted from the scalability of cloud platforms and can quickly adjust to meet unforeseen increases in transaction volume such as the sudden demand for unemployment claim applications resulting from the CARES Act.
Though this option offers a lower initial risk and cost than the Replace and Rewrite options, it does nothing to address the enormous threat posed by the aging and inflexible COBOL and RPG applications nor does it ameliorate the perilous shortage of technical resources available and capable of supporting them. As long as COBOL and RPG applications are deployed to run mission critical operations, whether in the cloud or on legacy hardware, our global economy will be at serious risk.
4. Migrate
Technology-enabled, complete conversion of the legacy applications and ecosystems to modern languages, databases and platforms is clearly the most reasonable approach to modernization. It protects the trillions of dollars governments and businesses have invested in the business rules (detailed functionality) which run their operations successfully every day.
By migrating the critical legacy software to equivalent functionality in a modern platform, there is no risk that a crucial function will be overlooked which is common when replacing or rewriting the legacy systems. Automation offers a timely and affordable transformation to a modern language, database and platform with a vast pool of technical resources qualified to maintain and support these critical systems for years to come. This option extends the useful life of these critical legacy applications substantially.
*Benefit Comparison Chart for each option:
ETS can help you make the transformation https://www.etsassociates.com/contact-us.
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