Legacy vs modernized systems: Cost, Performance and Efficacy

Do you know that 91% of customers discontinue business relationships with firms that use legacy systems due to security and privacy concerns? Not just that, businesses want technology to make businesses and lives easier, not more complex. Legacy software often fails to deliver the resilience and scalability required to meet time-sensitive analytics workloads. It also struggles to address the demanding high-performance computing needs critical for modern businesses’ success. A recent survey shows 95% of businesses grapple with operational challenges linked to data and analytics. At the same time, 88% of businesses continue to be hindered by the constraints of legacy technologies. In this blog, let us comprehensively compare legacy systems vs. modernized systems in terms of cost, performance, and efficacy, and we will let you decide on the suitable path ahead. 

The dilemma of legacy technology 

Legacy technology may have been the latest and best at a point in time and served its duty well when it was introduced. But, with the changing business climate and the evolving technology landscape, it is increasingly difficult for businesses to rely on legacy IT infrastructure. Digital transformation involves enhancing existing processes and systems with cutting-edge technology to harness the potential fully. Here is where legacy modernization plays a crucial role. 

The imperative for change and modernization

Legacy systems present a trifecta of challenges: high costs, inefficiency, and complexity. Being there for decades, these aging systems are challenging to update due to their sheer size and complexity. Moreover, they can also be very costly to maintain. Since they have been over-engineered repeatedly and have several layers of abstraction, it is very troublesome for developers to understand the data. 

Modernized tech assets offer much more efficient and cost-effective options than their predecessors. For instance, modern cloud infrastructure is streamlined, scalable, and much easier to maintain than legacy infrastructure. 

Some case studies to understand the impact of legacy system modernization

Let us understand this via the case study of Swedbank, a 200-year-old multinational bank that migrated and modernized its big data platform to the Azure cloud. The legacy database migration has brought about a multitude of benefits. The bank has achieved reduced time-to-market and significant cost savings and enhanced its fraud detection capabilities. The enhanced security, greater scalability and flexibility, and better regulatory compliance have helped the bank chart a secure future for its 7.7 million customers. The Azure Cloud has advanced machine learning and AI capabilities, leveraging which Swedbank can further automate, accelerate, and optimize its processes. 

Similarly, let us consider the example of Mount Sinai Health System, one of the largest medical systems in New York City, with internationally acclaimed hospitals known for their innovation. Mount Sinai faced several outages that complicated their on-premises EHR. These were mainly the result of various underlying data center infrastructure elements, which were complicated and time-consuming to resolve. Understanding that the outages were not sustainable, Mount Sinai saw the need to modernize and migrate to the Azure cloud.  

By migrating to Azure, they drastically improved data collaboration across their workloads. The flexibility enabled adaptability in capacity even during critical events like the pandemic. This modernization also provided the foundation for enhanced HIPAA compliance during outages. It facilitated the integration of cutting-edge electronic health records (EHR) technologies, ensuring an improved patient experience and solidifying their status as healthcare innovation leaders. Mount Sinai’s transition from legacy systems to the cloud exemplifies how modern cloud solutions can streamline operations, give the bandwidth for innovation, and bolster security. It was an important moment for the enterprise.

Cost Optimization 

Maintaining legacy systems can be expensive for enterprises.  

The following factors explain the reason behind the high costs. 

1. Firstly, legacy systems do not support advanced software, which results in the software frequently crashing. Fixing them necessitates allocating additional resources to address these disruptions while maintaining regular operations. This incurs additional expenses.
2. Secondly, since the system is outdated, there can be a lack of professionals with expertise in the legacy systems. As the tech becomes outdated and is not used in modern solutions, finding an expert familiar with its workings becomes challenging. Severe scarcity of such professionals results in high competition, increasing hiring costs and wages.  
3. Legacy systems have limited capabilities. As a result, enterprises must shell out much more money to streamline their performance. 

Thus, when it comes to cost optimization, modernizing or replacing legacy systems with advanced options such as the Azure cloud is essential to keep your operations seamless and your data secure cost-effectively. Although initial investments to modernize and migrate from a legacy system are required, the return on investment (ROI) is very high. In the long term, the high-cost savings make it a prudent choice. 

Performance 

Modernizing legacy systems will result in enhanced performance. Let us understand how. 

Legacy systems do not have AI and ML capabilities. Instead, the technology they support is outdated, although it still works. Similarly, enterprises cannot harness the data within the organization seamlessly because of siloes, limiting accessibility. The performance goes high once an enterprise upgrades with cutting-edge modern technology and better data access. 

1.    Upgrading to modern technology 

Legacy systems do not support new technology. It is one of the prime reasons for legacy database migration and modernization. Enterprises will eventually need to upgrade to more advanced technology. Businesses may reach a juncture where upgrading to more advanced technology becomes imperative to better align with organizational requirements.  

2.    Accessing Data better 

Unrestricted accessibility of data has become a critical necessity in today’s businesses. Legacy systems, however, do not meet these demands. In fact, it is challenging even to access vital data from various devices when it comes to legacy systems. Even if possible, locating the necessary data takes more time and effort. Such inconveniences impact a company’s adaptability and ability to thrive in a swiftly evolving business landscape.  

Migrating and modernizing legacy systems to an advanced platform, such as Azure Cloud, can enable enterprises to enhance their data accessibility across their entire organization. This, in turn, facilitates streamlined decision-making processes, minimizes risks, and increases transparency within the organization. As we saw the case study of Mount Sinai Health System above, we can see how the performance skyrocketed once they upgraded to Azure cloud. 

Efficacy of modernization 

Due to its streamlined data management capabilities, modernizing legacy systems brings about numerous benefits, such as improved performance, better reliability, and minimized system crashes. Consequently, the employees will spend less time troubleshooting and can invest more time in more critical tasks at hand and on innovations. 

Scalability and flexibility

Growing the IT assets and customer base is essential for enterprises to survive today’s competitive business landscape. Using legacy software with little scaling capabilities can impede business growth. Fortunately, modernizing your legacy system to a modern platform effectively tackles this challenge. With its flexibility, you can seamlessly scale your infrastructure to accommodate high volumes of data as necessary. We highlighted in the case study of Swedbank where cloud adoption has increased scalability with security and compliance. 

Security and Regulatory Compliance 

Advanced data management systems such as Azure Cloud have multi-layered security that protects the data from cyber-attacks and online threats and ensures compliance with the necessary regulations. Thus, the modernization of legacy systems is essential for enterprises to increase efficacy and ensure security. 

Data-driven decisions 

Legacy systems usually store business data in outdated formats, resulting in data silos and inconsistencies. Consequently, businesses also hold a substantial amount of data that is unutilized. Migrating to an advanced platform can enable an enterprise to effectively harness its data, boosting efficacy by elevating customer experiences and enhancing the offerings. 

Modernize your legacy system to Azure cloud with Saxon AI

At some point, you may eventually realize that your current infrastructure is unable to keep up with the changing demands of your business and the increasing volume of data. Modernization and migration emerge as the most viable solution, offering cost optimization, high performance, and enhanced efficacy. 

If you are contemplating modernizing your IT infrastructure and searching for a reliable team to support you in digital transformation, look no further. We are here to assist you. Saxon AI provides top-notch legacy modernization services. Our team of experts will analyze your existing IT infrastructure and craft a tailored legacy database migration solution, cutting through complexities and efficiently modernizing your IT infrastructure that aligns with your unique business needs. 

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