Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) are responsible for ensuring modernization efforts are effective and meet the needs of their teams and clients. This guide on legacy modernization for CTOs will help technology professionals navigate the transition to modern technologies and keep their companies competitive.
Legacy modernization strategies for CTOs
According to Gartner, by 2025, technical debt from legacy systems will consume more than 40% of IT budgets. Discover how to modernize these systems using the strategies outlined below:
Alignment with business
Any change in software affects the commercial area, so CTOs must align with business needs, assess the technical debt generated by the legacy system, and forecast the potential ROI from modernization.
For software, it is recommended to conduct an audit of the code base to evaluate the state of the code and infrastructure to start planning the modernization.
Migration of legacy applications
Migrating to the cloud offers greater scalability, flexibility, and security. At the same time, transitioning from monolithic architectures to microservices enables greater independence and faster deployment cycles.
This strategy can be supported by hyper-contextualized artificial intelligence, such as StackSpot AI, which facilitates the conversion of applications from legacy programming languages to more modern ones.
Improving agility and efficiency
Achieving scalability and agility requires flexibility to adapt to market trends, new technologies, and customer demands, but a legacy system can make this difficult.
Modernization enables CTOs to harness the full potential of modern technologies, enhancing development efficiency and agility in application deployment and scaling. The outcome is more opportunities for innovation, rapid market response, and a better customer experience.
Modernization as a catalyst for innovation
Innovation becomes more difficult in systems constrained by technological limitations, so modernization unlocks new opportunities to innovate and drive digital transformation. It enables a more fluid journey with greater possibilities for the end user.
Additionally, modern platforms enable integration with new technologies, such as AI, providing development teams with an environment to create new products, services, and business models.
Tips for speeding up legacy modernization
Modernization doesn’t happen overnight, but good practices can enhance agility without sacrificing quality. Here are some tips for CTOs:
Assess what should be modernized
Before even considering modernizing, start by evaluating the architecture of the legacy system, such as its capacity and flexibility, against business strategies. Centralized knowledge of legacy applications poses a business risk which StackSpot AI can help address.
Ask yourself: What parts of the system have remained effective over time? Does it require a partial overhaul or a complete upgrade? This will help you understand your system’s priorities and start modernizing applications.
StackSpot AI is hyper-contextualized and can generate this information quickly by mapping the legacy environment—a valuable asset for any company.
Define clear objectives and a roadmap
Once the system is mapped, it is time to assess modernization options and select the safest option to achieve the desired business impact. Before making a final decision, consider the implications for architecture, technology, functionality, expenses, and risks.
Invest in cloud technologies
The cloud allows companies to store information without managing physical devices, providing faster product launches, scalability, flexibility, lower costs, and greater security.
Additionally, cloud providers offer service models, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS), driving a new phase of development more aligned with customer demands.
Prioritize security and compliance
While legacy systems are vulnerable to attacks due to outdated security measures, new technologies are designed to address common cyber threats.
CTOs can oversee the implementation of stronger security measures and ensure compliance with industry regulations. New technologies offer enhanced security features, such as encryption.
Invest in automation and DevOps
DevOps can be integrated during modernization to streamline workflows using automation—this is a keyword—throughout the development cycle. The goal is to automate repetitive dev tasks, leading to faster deployments and continuous iterations.
Generative AI plays a crucial role here, being able to automate tasks and offer insights for development. In practice, the AI assistant for the entire software development lifecycle leverages your company’s context to suggest informed, high-quality ideas.
The outcome is a significant reduction in manual tasks, an improved developer experience, and increased productivity within development teams.
Constant monitoring
Constant monitoring in the context of modernization is based on investment in technology that captures data and enables analysis, allowing the detection of problems and an overview of applications.
The key advantage of monitoring is that it supports decision-making and refines essential strategies for the company, such as determining the most suitable cloud migration option.
StackSpot AI as a tool for modernization
StackSpot AI is a powerful, customized tool that generates hyper-contextualized code using AI, helping to understand legacy code and create modern solutions that align with business rules.
Legacy modernization with the support of a code wizard offers major benefits, including:
- shorter time-to-market
- innovative environment
- lower maintenance costs
- improved user experience
- assistance in mapping the legacy environment
- more fluid journey, among others.
Additionally, StackSpot AI’s resources are crucial for successful modernization: Knowledge Sources provide the context needed for AI to generate assertive code, whereas AI Agents perform specific tasks based on previously supplied information.
Check out more details about our AI tool:
Legacy Modernization Challenges for CTOs
It is well-known that legacy systems pose challenges, such as limited innovation potential and slow performance, because they need to be updated. Below is a list of challenges that affect the strategies planned by CTOs:
Adopting new technologies
Change can be difficult, especially when it involves something previously unknown. New technologies challenge development teams and, even more so, conservative leaders.
That’s why highlighting the potential of new technologies is essential for gaining acceptance, albeit gradually, and helping the team learn how to use the new tool. One example is generative artificial intelligence, which can automate repetitive and tedious tasks for devs.
Costs
According to IBM, legacy modernization allows companies to invest 74% less in hardware, software, and staff, resulting in huge savings, given that legacy systems have high maintenance costs.
The cost of the modernization process depends on the company’s size, complexity, and approach. The challenge lies in choosing a path that will optimize operations, save on maintenance, and improve efficiency.
Lack of knowledge
Recent technologies have created new specialties in the market, but the challenge is the lack of qualified people for these positions, so this gap poses a significant risk for the business.
People must be trained in new technologies to fill these new roles, such as AI and machine learning specialists, prominent data specialists, virtual assistant developers, and many others. This shift extends beyond individual companies to the entire technology landscape.
Risks
A significant risk in legacy modernization is the disruption of operations, particularly during the transition from legacy to modern solutions. This implies downtime and a temporary loss of functionality.
That’s why planning is essential to ensure a smooth transition. Here are critical steps to mitigate the risks of modernization:
- Evaluate the system while identifying points of interruption and analyzing the scenarios that could lead to downtime, errors, and other problems.
- Create a staging environment that replicates the production environment to allow testing without affecting users.
- Launch a pilot version to a limited audience before the final version, gathering feedback and identifying potential problems.
- Carry out an incremental deployment by releasing new versions in stages, segmenting users to minimize unforeseen events and facilitate problem-solving.
- Monitor key metrics such as response time, error rate, and user engagement within the application.
- Integrate AI into the development process for tasks such as writing code, modernizing applications, detecting technical debt, and testing.
Conclusion
Modernization is challenging, requiring a thorough analysis of the legacy before it even begins, but it is crucial for companies to stay competitive.
CTOs can see opportunities to boost efficiency, increase agility, optimize costs, and create ideas that align with modern technologies.
Generative artificial intelligence has emerged as a new resource in software development, automating tasks that speed up developers’ daily work and providing valuable insights for better decision-making.
Success depends on robust planning, a qualified team eager to learn, and the right platform, combined with effective strategies such as refactoring when a system is started from scratch in the cloud, and re-platforming, which adapts the system to the cloud without altering its architecture.
Need support with modernization? Get in touch with our team of experts.
