Regulatory issues are forcing IT managers to dig into legacy
systems to find out which applications, operating systems and
bolt-ons are really running the business
It may come as a surprise to some IT departments, but the average
age of applications that run core business processes is 15 years
old.
A survey by HAL Knowledge Solutions found that almost 30% of
companies are maintaining software up to 25 years old. At first
glance, that seems archaic. Common technology refresh cycles run at
three to four years, yet some of the largest and most advanced
business in the UK are relying on software that was around when the
Tories came to power in 1979.
This raises some interesting questions about the "out with the old,
in with the new" mantra that the technology industry is all too
often guilty of chanting.
Legacy or proprietary technology is at odds with our e-business
plug-and-play world. However, if you were to lift the lid on many
large organisations, underneath the customer relationship
management initiatives, the e-commerce engines, the web servers and
business intelligence tools sits a core of application code that
pre-dates most of its support staff.
Legacy applications are commonly seen as a burden - a constant
cycle of updates and maintenance where dedicated, highly skilled IT
staff have to keep the heterogeneous mix of proprietary code up to
date.
However, legacy applications are undergoing a renaissance of
importance on the IT agenda as a result of business drivers that
are forcing IT departments to take a much closer look at the "dark
side" of IT management.
Issues including regulatory compliance, IT governance initiatives
and accountability in areas such as outsourcing require businesses
to have a deeper understanding of what makes legacy systems
tick.
Applications that run core business processes are ambiguous by
default and it is sometimes complicated to assess where they start
and end. They are often a complicated mix of application code,
operating systems and "bolt-ons". By definition, there is no such
thing as a typical legacy environment, and as such it becomes
incredibly difficult and time-consuming to influence or measure the
way it behaves.
Without a clear picture of the legacy applications layer,
implementing change or reporting against compliance and governance
requirements is an educated guess at best, and holding a third
party to account on service level agreements is impossible.
In fact, one of the only guarantees in legacy applications
management is that the less you know about the applications, the
more time and resources will be invested in establishing that
understanding.
The best way to reduce potential risk or additional burden is to
start with some simple questions.
- How much of your organisation's IT infrastructure is dependent
on legacy applications?
- How much of that software is mission-critical?
- What level of visibility and understanding do you have of this
area?
- What business initiatives could force a review or increased
accountability for proprietary applications?
Do not be surprised if you cannot respond to these questions
immediately, that is the norm. In the same way it is the norm for
legacy applications to hold vast amounts of "orphaned" data, or
duplicated information - both symptoms of the applications
management challenge.
The harsh reality is that it can take months to get an accurate
picture of an enterprise applications portfolio, which belies a
bigger issue: greater IT account-ability demands more from legacy
applications management and most businesses are not prepared to
deliver against this. Effective IT reporting is no longer about
management information alone. It is about meaningful, quality
data.
Therefore, if you have IT compliance or governance directives
coming down from the board, and proprietary applications
maintenance features on your to-do list, be prepared to unsettle
the murky waters of legacy systems. When looking at the dark side
of applications, the worst place to start is in the dark.
Mark Kusionowicz is vice-president of marketing at applications
portfolio management company HAL Knowledge Solutions