“Legacy system” is a term technology professionals use constantly — and, most of the time, with a negative connotation. Some companies feel they must avoid legacy systems at all costs, while others believe most of their core operations depend on outdated software or processes.

But even if an organization believes that older systems running legacy applications are essential, it’s time to consider whether the risks are worth it.

As companies struggle to keep up with changing times, it’s important to understand the systems that underpin critical processes — and a legacy system is more than just old software.

What exactly are legacy systems, and how do you solve the problems they bring? This article will help you address that pain — and others — using low-code technology.

What are legacy systems?

According to Gartner, a legacy system is “an information system that may be based on outdated technologies, but is critical to day-to-day operations.”

A legacy system is old and/or outdated software or technology that an organization keeps using because it still performs the functions it was originally designed for and cannot be easily replaced.

Because business environments evolve constantly — economic shifts, new legislation, market conditions, management changes, reorganizations, and so on — software tends to become obsolete over time.

To adapt to all these changes, systems also need to evolve continuously. Those changes make it hard for IT managers to maintain a complete view of the environment, since adaptations and updates are often implemented by different people over the years.

Legacy systems are usually essential within an organization. That is undoubtedly one of the main reasons they remain so widely used. IT managers should therefore analyze which legacy systems the company runs and to what extent they are still worth keeping.

How to identify a legacy system

Common examples of legacy systems include Lotus Notes, Domino, SAP ECC, Adobe Flash, and Microsoft Silverlight. Companies can identify that they’re running a legacy system by evaluating several aspects, since software can become obsolete for a number of reasons:

  • Product discontinuation: the vendor stops selling the product, which is known as an EOL (end-of-life) legacy system. For the vendor, the software has passed its useful life, and support is dropped as well.

One example is Microsoft ending support for older operating systems such as Windows 7 and Windows XP.

  • No updates available: while related to EOL, an EOL legacy system can often be replaced with a similar but updated solution — or, as with Windows, the vendor may offer a newer version with comparable performance.

Some legacy software, however, has no updates or newer versions to offer. That can make switching difficult, since companies may need to migrate to a new vendor and adopt new processes to perform the same tasks.

  • It can’t scale: some legacy systems can’t scale enough to support, for example, larger data flows or higher transaction volumes. The software has simply become obsolete for a growing business.
  • Shortage of skilled developers: if a company develops software in-house or runs a custom internal system, finding qualified developers to maintain it can be difficult or nearly impossible.

If the organization depends on that legacy system for everyday processes, the problem is even more serious. One example is an organization running applications written in programming languages that only a handful of people in the company can use or modify.

Why are legacy systems still in use?

IT systems typically last for years, but technology evolves at breakneck speed. That’s why systems often become obsolete before companies are ready to replace them — and why organizations commonly keep legacy systems running for years.

Here are some of the reasons organizations continue to use them:

  • They still meet a business need or are mission-critical systems;
  • They represent an old technology investment that hasn’t paid off yet — deployment can be expensive, so organizations need to use them for a certain period to recoup the investment;
  • Replacing a legacy system requires an investment of resources (money, time, and people) that companies can’t always afford;
  • The company lacks the IT skills to migrate the legacy system;
  • Organizations often lack the technical specifications needed to build a new system with the same characteristics as the legacy one — frequently because applications get modified by many people over their lifetime to fit specific business needs;
  • The organization simply doesn’t want to replace it.

The risks of sticking with a legacy system

Even in the era of digital business, legacy systems are a reality for most organizations, from small and midsize businesses to large enterprises. Here are some examples of the risks that come with legacy software or legacy systems:

  • Compatibility: because it relies on outdated technologies, a legacy system can become incompatible with newer systems or technologies that are also essential to the business. As a result, the departments that use it may not benefit from all the capabilities the new systems offer;
  • Support: if the vendor no longer sells the system the company uses, or no longer supports it, it’s unlikely to help when a problem arises;
  • Data silos: legacy systems generally weren’t built to integrate with newer systems, isolating data from other platforms;
  • Security: the more patches the software required in the past, the harder it can be to keep up with security concerns. Over the years, the system grows increasingly fragile — especially once the vendor stops releasing new patches or monitoring old issues.

With legacy software, vulnerabilities often go undetected due to lack of support. If they are detected, a patch may not be available. And if a patch does become available, finding someone who can apply it may be difficult or extremely expensive. The longer these systems remain in use, the more security concerns pile up.

  • Scalability: legacy systems can be hard to scale as the company grows. This is particularly problematic for systems like ETL software and data warehouses. Data flows into companies constantly, and as the organization grows, so does the volume of data being processed. Data solutions must be able to scale with that data, or they will hold back development and performance;
  • Performance and productivity: legacy systems get slower and slower over time, which means performance, efficiency, and productivity can decline as well;
  • Maintenance costs and competitiveness: maintaining a legacy system means pouring money into an IT asset that will need to be replaced sooner or later.

Is keeping a legacy system worth it?

The risk of keeping legacy systems has only grown in recent years, thanks to new coordinated attacks by hacker groups. Legacy systems provide an entry point for malicious code to reach the corporate network.

A report by security experts detailed how TikTok could be used as a vehicle to exploit persistent security flaws in older, unpatched systems. Since many corporate employees use smartphones and other devices in the workplace, this represents a new attack vector that information security teams may not even be considering.

This scenario is a perfect example of why legacy systems need to be seriously evaluated for their value against the unknown risk they may carry.

Modern systems, by contrast, receive continuous security updates. Threats like these new techniques can be patched — usually before the IT team ever has to deal with an actual attack.

How to solve the legacy system problem

There comes a point when legacy systems monopolize IT resources and make the digital transformation journey even more complex. The solution, then, is to modernize IT processes.

IT modernization is a growing priority for many organizations. The practice focuses on infrastructure and operational improvements, such as system upgrades and/or the adoption of new technologies. Legacy system modernization is part of that movement.

Updating and optimizing business systems to improve operations is an investment organizations make to build more future-ready applications. The long-term payoff is cost savings and efficiency, positioning the organization to depend less on legacy systems.

How to modernize legacy systems the right way

There are several ways to modernize legacy systems. The best option for your organization will depend on the challenges you face and your goals for the future.

But the road to legacy modernization has a shortcut: bringing the old system onto a low-code platform. Development based on a low-code platform proves to be an ideal solution in today’s business ecosystem, offering a modern, flexible, and cost-effective way to overcome these challenges.

What is low-code?

The term “low-code” was coined by the research firm Forrester in 2014 and defined as a platform for developing customer-facing applications.

The main goal of low-code is to reduce the amount of “hand-coding” (code written from scratch) and increase the amount of code reuse. Low-code is highly composable, meaning a component built once can easily be reused in different contexts.

As a software development approach that requires minimal coding to build systems, low-code is quickly becoming the best way for organizations to innovate while avoiding the complexities of programming languages.

Today, developers use low-code to enhance digital capabilities. A Forrester survey of larger enterprises showed that low-code was already used by 31% of the 254 IT decision-makers interviewed. Gartner, for its part, predicts that by 2025, 70% of applications will be built with low-code or no-code.

What is a low-code platform?

A low-code development platform is an application that provides a graphical user interface for programming. Instead of writing individual lines of code, users select the components they need from a menu. Functional and reusable, all the work happens through a visual drag-and-drop interface.

Drag-and-drop programming makes users fast — removing one of the biggest barriers to full digital transformation — because they leverage pre-built libraries and features to accelerate development.

How to modernize legacy systems with low-code

Low-code development helps streamline the entire development process to speed up delivery. With these platforms, it becomes much easier to bridge the gap between legacy and modernized systems.

There are three options for upgrading a legacy system.

1. Replacement

This legacy modernization method involves replacing the entire system with a new one. The advantage is starting from a clean slate, allowing you to build a brand-new system tailored to your business requirements.

However, it inevitably takes considerable time and energy to assess current systems, identify what is and isn’t working, and rebuild them to the new requirements.

2. Migration

In this case, elements of the legacy system are transferred to a new platform. One example is moving digital assets, such as workflows and processes, to the cloud.

One of the significant benefits of low-code modernization is that it helps accelerate expansion and migration procedures that are typically slow and complicated.

A cloud-native DevOps strategy designed to meet legacy modernization demands can be a strong starting point once strategic requirements and procedures have been identified. This technique enables centralized administration and immediate update releases.

3. REST API (Extension)

If you want to keep the legacy system’s performance intact, one way to start is by connecting the new system through a REST API. An application programming interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to access and consume data is known as a REST API. While it can work with almost any protocol, it typically uses HTTP for web APIs.

With this approach, developers won’t need to set up any new software or libraries to create a REST API. Teams can build an API infrastructure that simplifies integrating data, applications, and devices (such as Salesforce, Facebook, and others) with API-enabled legacy systems.

3 benefits of modernizing legacy systems with low-code platforms

When considering low-code for legacy system modernization, faster delivery is the first benefit that comes to mind — but it’s far from the only one.

  • Productivity: what used to take months can be reduced to weeks or even days. With low-code development, time is no longer a barrier to real innovation. Adopting low-code encourages the reuse of modules and functions, which also improves standardization;
  • Quality: with less code being written, errors are less likely to occur. While testing remains crucial in low-code development, the “test once, use many times” approach becomes possible, improving software quality;
  • User experience: low-code fosters collaboration between business and IT to improve the user experience. In addition, many low-code platforms offer omnichannel delivery, ensuring a consistent experience whether the user is on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device.

Low-code platforms can be a true game changer for legacy system modernization. They encourage and promote collaboration between business and IT, aligning business processes while delivering a modern system. Learn more about the potential of low-code for your company by subscribing to the TrueChange newsletter.