A Guide to Application Modernization for Businesses

The technology landscape is constantly evolving, and, as a result, businesses need to stay on top of their applications and ensure they’re keeping up just as fast. 

For many organizations, outdated technology can mean slow applications at best and, at worst, security risks and little to no progress.

To remain competitive, businesses must continually think about how to adapt and improve their technology, including migrating from legacy applications to more modern systems that are better suited to the needs of today’s organizations.

Rather than completely retiring legacy systems, application modernization is similar to refurbishing parts of the house instead of bulldozing it and starting again. The foundations may be perfectly fine to keep using, but the interior needs some upgrades for enhanced safety, security, and structural integrity.

To modernize any application, businesses must assess their application server software first to better understand the frameworks currently being used and what will be needed for building and deploying any application upgrades. The goal of any upgrade is to improve overall performance, so it’s vital to ensure that the current servers can handle these modernizations.

Why is legacy app modernization important? 

At some point, every application and piece of software being used in a business will no longer function to its highest standard. This could be because the application itself no longer meets the needs of the business or because other technology has come along to replace many of the functions this app currently performs. 

For IT teams, a decision must be made after examining the cost of maintaining legacy systems versus modernization and the costs that this comes with. In most cases, the challenges that come with legacy applications make modernization a necessary investment.

Problems with legacy applications 

Systems that have been used for a number of years without significant assessment and upgrade can have several problems, including:

• Outdated infrastructure. As legacy systems typically use older tools, many of these applications are incompatible with modern technology. Many can’t connect to other applications the business uses. This keeps information siloed to only the employees with access to the legacy system, making collaboration across the organization more challenging.
• Security vulnerabilities. For many businesses, the biggest threat to their cybersecurity comes from outdated software. Cybercriminals typically exploit software vulnerabilities to gain access to organizational systems, which is why using legacy systems can put businesses at significant risk of a cyberattack.
• Limited growth potential. Scaling with a legacy application can be a significant challenge as the business grows. Many of these tools were not designed to grow beyond their initial capabilities, meaning that the company will need to switch to a new system that can handle ongoing demands more easily.
• High maintenance costs. Older programs and applications typically need more frequent maintenance, which can become costly if they aren’t modernized. Over time, these costs can increase significantly, eating into the budget that could’ve been used for upgrading to more modern applications.

Types of application modernization 

Depending on the needs of the organization, there are many different ways to start an application modernization process. The most common types of modernization are:

• Refactoring. This is where applications are restructured and the original coding reoptimized for performance improvements. Refactoring is one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain and upgrade a legacy application, as changes don’t impact the core functionality of the program but enhance overall efficiency.
• Rehosting. Migrating legacy applications to a different server or hosting environment with minimal code changes is known as rehosting. This is ideal for when upgrades need to happen quickly but aren’t always sufficient for full application modernization. Rehosting can also be called “lift-and-shift”, as speed typically improves during the environment transition, but little source code is being changed.
• Replatforming. Moving legacy applications to a new infrastructure or platform can lead to improvements, particularly in terms of scalability, but this process also requires some coding updates to function correctly. This approach lies between refactoring and rehosting in terms of transitional ease.
• Rearchitecting. For organizations that need to implement cloud application modernization, rearchitecturing is usually necessary. This process modifies the application code and extends it to be suited to a cloud environment or other modern standards.
• Replacement. When legacy applications are too outdated to be used and upgraded, a full replacement is often needed. This comes with its own challenges as businesses must start over with a new application rather than upgrading the current system.

Benefits of application modernization 

Upgrading your legacy applications takes time, money, and resources. But the payoff is worth it. There are numerous benefits that application modernization brings, and while these will vary from business to business, the goal is to revitalize applications in a way that brings them up to current standards and improves their functionality for the whole organization.

Improved team productivity 

Many new software come with user experience upgrades, making it easier for your team to get their work done within these applications. Not only that, but the speed improvements on modernized applications mean that employees can complete tasks more quickly, particularly when collaborating, increasing their overall productivity.

Increased scalability and flexibility 

As teams and workloads grow with the business, modernized applications can scale with it. These programs are typically more flexible than legacy systems, meaning that changing customer needs or market conditions don’t phase employees, and work can be shifted to meet these demands. 

Having agile, flexible applications is essential in any modern business, so upgrading applications is a necessity. One of the best features of many of these applications is that routine upgrades are now expected so this functionality is built into the programs and applications themselves. This means that any future upgrades and modernizations are more straightforward because this has already been accounted for in the coding.

Enhanced security 

Additional security features are usually inherent to more modern applications. This makes the business less vulnerable to cyber threats and helps businesses in certain industries, like healthcare or financial services, to remain compliant with industry standards. This is essential for those industries where customer data could be at risk if there’s a security breach or other issues. 

Non-compliance can lead to thousands of dollars, if not more, in fines and customer distrust which can impact the business long term. With modernized applications, businesses can protect themselves from these security threats as best they can while remaining compliant with industry requirements for data protection.

Reduced costs and technical debt

One significant problem with legacy applications is that development teams may be tempted to alter coding to keep the application running for longer. While this can sometimes be helpful, it can also create technical debt issues, where a faster delivery of a completed code is often prioritized over a well-written code.

By prioritizing speed over quality, applications often need significant work and maintenance in the future. This becomes costly, both in time and human resources. By implementing application modernization instead, organizations can reduce the overall maintenance costs of these legacy applications, particularly if there’s a level of technical debt held over from past adjustments. 

While some investment will be needed in the modernization process, this ultimately saves businesses time and money, as the tools work more efficiently from the outset and require less maintenance in the long term.

How to build an application modernization strategy

Whether your company is looking to modernize a whole suite of applications or simply upgrade a single application, the steps to ensure a successful build and deployment of your upgraded systems look the same.

Assessment and discovery 

The most important place to begin is assessing what systems are currently being used and the infrastructure that these applications are currently working from. This allows your development team to better understand the capabilities and limitations of servers and other hosting infrastructure. 

This is essential for knowing what’s possible on the current infrastructure and where upgrades must be made alongside the application itself. Beyond this, the team will also need to assess the overall business goals and requirements the modernized applications need to fulfill.

Planning and design

Once the assessment of your current tech suite is complete, it’s time to start planning and designing the upgrades you need to make. This is also the point in the application modernization project where the scope should be defined, along with a detailed plan on how the project will roll out. 

The planning and design phase should also include details on who is responsible for various parts of the upgrade, what resources will be needed, whether any legacy applications will experience downtime and for how long, along with any budgetary needs that will need sign-off before the project starts.

Development 

The project's development stage will likely occur in a sandbox environment so that legacy applications can continue running with little to no disruption to the rest of the team. In the staging sandbox, developers can make coding changes and test applications before making them live.

This is also a crucial stage in ensuring that any modernizations and upgrades made are compatible with the business's existing applications, if integration is necessary.

Deployment 

Once the coding is complete and developers are happy with the final product, the new version of the application can be deployed. This may happen in stages, such as by team or priority level, or could be rolled out to the whole company at once to minimize downtime.

Maintenance 

Even with the newest technology in place, applications will still require ongoing maintenance and support. Particularly in the early days after deployment, the development team must monitor for issues in the new version of the application, particularly if these are interrupting typical employee workflows.

Additional application upgrades or enhancements can also be planned during the maintenance stage, but these should be easier to manage with the latest tech standards in place.

Welcome to the modern world!

Modernizing your business applications can seem like a challenge, particularly if you’re operating on longstanding legacy software that hasn’t been frequently maintained. But, investing time and resources into modernization is vital for the ongoing success of your company, especially if you’re looking to scale. 

With application modernization, your organization can meet the current standards for your industry and make your employees’ working hours more effective and productive.

Give your developers the space to build modern services for your business with application development platforms for organizations of all sizes.