Many 16-bit and 32-bit legacy software are the stuff of legends. Hard-coded with lots of room for ubiquity and expansion, a vision far beyond its time. However, like engines of vehicles there comes a time when parts run out of production and becomes obsolete. Furthermore, when operating system developers move on to newer architectures, these legacy systems cannot evolve anymore no matter how we tweak these systems. Nevertheless, there are reasons why certain entities continue to farm on these legacy systems, and they aren’t shy of telling you that some of these reasons prove they are even better than their newer comparable counterparts.

Old is Gold

Most of the software we use today are based on the success and fundamentals of the older generation systems. Developers and coders have learned hard and valuable lessons from creating such legacy systems and have condensed all that material knowledge into creating newer compatible next generation software, just to keep up with the enhancement of chip-based architecture and technology.

Back in those days, experience and feedback were all there was to building a legacy systems even if it means building from scratch. Developers would thoroughly audit industry led user requirements and formulate inputs into coding to form actual functions. DOS, SQL, C++, FOXPRO are names that can faintly ring a bell for some today but yet form the ancestry DNA of programming languages of Android, Java and other languages today.

The thing about legacy systems is that they are built entirely for the company, and the company’s operations and culture have eventually evolved around them after so long. Some pioneering industries that first embraced this technological step forward back then still continue to evolve around the workings and sub-routines of their systems even until today. Interestingly also, these pioneers continue to retain some of their longest serving line of staff, all experts in these systems themselves, even if they have not learnt any programming skills their entire career. Or maybe its because it’s so difficult to find a new replacement who can master those systems.

Ask a young millennial to try their hand on these age-defying legacy systems and their immediate response is a wide-eyed appalling long-faced expression on their face. Chances are these legacy systems have only a few colors, no graphical-user-interfaces, very little mouse control, pure key combination commands, bleeps for sounds, and, have long lists of different menu options that can make a new user completely lost. What’s worse is the lack of an ‘undo’ function, which irks new users and forces them to by-heart every single step and key to avoid making any mistake.

Upkeep or Upgrade

Most legacy systems have been so reliable, consistent and stable all their years of service that convincing the users to migrate to a new system is extremely difficult. Not so much of the user’s resistance to change but more toward the gold standard of those legacy systems in comparison to its newer comparable solutions. Not all newer comparable solutions offer a one-stop all-in solution, and having to re-program modules to match the exact functionality and ubiquity increases the upgrade costs by a 100 fold.

That’s why some legacy system users prefer to upkeep their systems by running their old software on virtual environments instead. However not all functionality can be fully restored when running through virtual environments especially when newer devices continue to become incompatible with those older environments. In most cases, these legacy system huggers need to maintain a stockpile of replaceable parts and devices to keep their compatible devices running before manufacturers for these parts and devices cease production altogether.

New comparable solutions have mostly become modular and the compatibility of syncing systems across different modules or sub-systems is still limited. Some newer solutions have its inherent programming restrictions that cannot be changed resulting in incompatibility with most end-users looking for an upgrade. Where the software fails to adapt to its user’s operations, its users have to learn and redesign new operational methodologies to adapt to this functional limitation all over again. This disruption only creates bigger problems and costs.

Ownership vs Licenses

Most legacy systems have been modified and reprogrammed over the years to specifically cater to a business’ unique operations and industry functions. From all the monies invested in modifying and developing new modules to run concurrently with the legacy systems, these sub-systems collectively form the intellectual property assets owned by the business. Some of these businesses have even outlasted the original developers of those legacy systems themselves thereby owing no obligation and license to anyone.

Modern software today, except for the open software licenses, are license to use and users do not own the software no matter how much they have paid. Some software are also leased with a right to use, thereby disallowing any modifications or ripping of its programming databases for any purpose whatsoever. This makes it hard to convince legacy system huggers considering the higher investment costs required for the upgrade or migration altogether. The potential future economic benefit doesn’t justify the immediate cost of upgrading and maintaining their systems going forward.

Leased licenses or annual based subscription software are actually more expensive to upkeep in the long-run. While it does offer some scalable deployment costs, most large and medium scale businesses may find the per-user costs negligible altogether. What does interest most legacy system users is the remediation support that is offered near 24/7, where users can easily contact and obtain solutions to their problems regarding the software.

Up, up and away!

Although in all technical sense, legacy systems can still come onto the cloud, however devices accessing and those being able to function according to those systems online are limited. New systems are built on newer more relevant architectures allowing them to be cross-compatible with newer programming languages such as Android and IOS devices.

However, some antivirus solutions and other ancillary software solutions are keeping up with the newer, more complex, architecture systems and are slowly becoming less sensitive or compatible toward legacy systems. Also, new malicious software are spreading through the internet and targeting servers running virtualised environments. Most cloud or VPN based virtualised environments running older shells without an adequate end-point protection are extremely vulnerable as most antivirus systems, except BitDefender, do not scan or protect the virtual machines running.

Hence, while newer software and systems are offering cloud-based solutions, businesses also need to consider their security postures and exposure when computing through the cloud. Cloud based systems do have the benefit of geographical accessibility with data backup and redundant servers to maintain connectivity and sustainability. However, most malicious attacks target the client end-points rather than the actual server as a means of infiltrating the network, as more often than not, the phishing email scams can easily convince or fool the users into downloading or activating certain links. This adds to the risks of legacy system users switching to online-based solution systems.

Globales Remedies

Based on our recent project with a very old and pioneering business entity, we have successfully upgraded their systems in stages toward a fully customized new open sourced legacy software which they can patent themselves. This project required an extensive study into the minute details of their day-to-day and year-on-year operations and what functions and methodologies were used and needed to be retained. Due to industry specific requirements, certain hardware had to be maintained so as to deliver the required materials to its clients.

Using our wide range of expertise and in-house technologies, our project successfully deployed new and updated hardware to users in stages to allow them to continue running their legacy systems on a new virtualised environment before transitioning fully to the new system. The new system boasted vast improvements from the old legacy systems and further expanded their business opportunities by enabling them to develop and integrate their very own Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices for their clients. The block-chain algorithms created based on their many years of industry experience is currently being patented as well.

We have built this client’s system on core principles of business sustainability, whereby every bit of expertise and knowledge from their long serving employees is systematically stored into the System’s Intelligence (SI) that can be automated to save costs and time. These employees actually feel more empowered now as they continue to contribute more to the business. Also, by integrating certain functions, a lot of redundant costs and waste have been significantly reduced which quickly reflected on the costs savings from this project investment.

Even with the recent Covid-19 pandemic, this client is able to quickly enable work-from-home (WFH) arrangements during government lock-downs without compromising their security posture and protection using BitDefender’s GravityZone end-point security systems. Their new legacy system also has video conferencing systems and instant messaging allowing each of their employees to maintain contact at all times; even with their vendors and customers through their web-portals.

Conclusion

Legacy systems will eventually become obsolete as the race between newer hardware and software architectures continue to blaze on. Hence it is only a matter of when. However, rather than just jumping blindly into the next new thing, users should review their business sustainability goals carefully beforehand and consider developing a new legacy system of their own based on the improvements required from their older legacy systems instead. New off-the-shelf systems and software may not necessarily meet your specific business needs and may prove even more costly trying to bend over backwards to make it work.

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