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With the pace of digital change continuing unabated, Canadian enterprises are feeling the constant pressure to innovate and remain competitive. Canadian enterprises born before tech became great (think pre-2000) are primarily utilizing legacy infrastructure to run most of their business. Legacy systems are insufficient and prevent an enterprise from obtaining the agility, scalability, and operational efficiencies required from an organization. It has become imperative to modernize the legacy infrastructure throughout an organization and it is no longer a matter of choice for enterprises in Canada to success in a digital-first world.
This blog suggests an actionable playbook for Canadian enterprises for how to made the change from legacy systems to modern, scalable, cloud-native systems and practices for future readiness and success in the long term.
Why is Legacy Modernization Important
Legacy systems can be a blessing and a curse as they are at the heart of critical business applications and activities:
- Many ongoing costly era technology
- Inadequate level of technology integration
- Limited technology scalability
- Increased compromise of data security
- Legacy technology can not enable a cloud-native application
For Canadian enterprises in finance, health, manufacturing and government, changing from a legacy environment is more than updating hardware; adopting a new IT paradigm to enable the support for purpose-built cloud-native applications found in virtually all modern enterprise environments.
Key Drivers For Infrastructure Modernization
There are a number of reasons that are forcing organizations in Canada to abandon legacy systems:
1. Cloud Adoption
The acceptance of cloud computing allows businesses to modify resources on the fly, to reduce capita financing and to improve and maximize uptime. Cloud service providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) provide services at speed and capabilities that traditional infrastructure cannot support or deliver.
2.Cybersecurity Risk
Legacy systems are open to attack. Modern infrastructure supports advanced security protocols, automated patching, and compliant with Canadian laws for the protection of information.
3.Accessible Remote Work
The post pandemic workforce prefers to have secure and flexible access to systems based on their needs. Organizations usually exposed to enterprise level systems that cannot mitigate the demands of remote work in the way the work from home environment exposes them to risk and degradation in performance.
4.Innovation & Future Competitiveness
To stay competitive, organizations will need to integrate technologies that incorporate DevOps, AI and machine learning and real time analytics. Accessing these technologies requires a modern and consistent infrastructure environment.
Step-by-Step Roadmap to Modernizing Legacy Infrastructure
Step 1 – Assessment & Planning
Before attempting to modernize legacy infrastructure or systems, you will need to complete a full audit of the existing systems:
- Identify systems that are at end-of-life
- Understand the business dependency
- Identify current performance levels and bottlenecks
- Identify security gaps
Use the information gathered from the assessment of the existing technology to support a business case to consider legacy modernization, which will include financial consideration such as cost-benefit analysis and projected ROI.
Step 2 – Determine Modernization Requirements
You should also determine the specific goals of modernization.
For example:
- System performance
- Cloud migration
- Security posture
- Reduced operating costs
- Enable DevOps automation
Demands for modernization need to align with the desired business objectives.
Step 3: Select Updated Modernization Strategy
There is no best way. Canadian organizations have options of modernization strategies:
a. Rehosting (“Lift and Shift”)
Move legacy application to the cloud without changes to the architecture of structure. This is fast, but may not save costs or maximize performance.
b. Replatforming
Make minimal changes to the application to allow it to operate more efficiently in the cloud environment.
c. Refactoring
Re-design the applications to leverage cloud-native technologies such as containers, microservices, or serverless computing.
d. Rebuilding/Replacement
Build a new application from scratch or buy an off-the-shelf modern solution.
Step 4: Implement & Embrace DevOps and Automation
DevOps practices can help when undertaking legacy modernization. Because DevOps promotes automation and collaboration in CI/CD, automation of testing, deployment, etc., DevOps can take advantage of the software development process – saving time to market, eliminating human error, etc.
Invest in automation tools which may include:
- Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD for CI/CD
- Docker, Kubernetes for containers
- Terraform, Ansible for Infrastructure as code
In summary, combining modern infrastructure and DevOps automation can provide lower downtime, ensure scalability and speed-up development capabilities.
Step 5: Migrate to Cloud
A cloud-centric architecture is a key component in any modernization journey. Here are some things to consider as you work through your cloud migration:
- Select your cloud service model: IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS
- Select your deployment model: public, private, hybrid, or multi-cloud
- Consider Canadian data residency obligations
Work with a trusted cloud consulting partner to help manage your migration and minimize disruption of the business.
Step 6: Continue to Enhance Security and Compliance
Security must be included in every step throughout the modernization process. Defend data and systems using modern tools and frameworks:
- Implement a zero trust architecture
- Employ modern threat detection and response capabilities
- Encrypt all data both at rest and in transit
- Ensure compliance with PIPEDA and any industry-prescribed regulations (e.g. HIPAA, PCI-DSS)
Many cloud providers have compliance-ready environments designed for Canadian enterprises.
Step 7: Observe and Optimize
Modernization is not an end state or a project that will last for a specified amount of time, it is ongoing. You will want to be proactive regarding the state of your infrastructure when it comes to performance and cost optimization. You can be proactive by using observability tools such as:
- Prometheus and Grafana for metrics and dashboards
- ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana) or Datadog for logging and tracing
- AWS CloudWatch or Azure Monitor for monitoring cloud infrastructure / services
Ongoing optimization will ensure your systems remain performant, secure, and in lock-step with evolving business
Common Challenges with Legacy Modernization
Although modernization has significant advantages, Canadian companies face:
- High upfront costs
- Difficult process of data migration
- Resistance to change by teams
- Knowledge skill gap regarding cloud and DevOps technologies
Addressing these challenges requires sound leadership, stakeholder buy-in, and in some cases a collaboration with a managed service provider (MSP) with experience on modernization projects.
Case Study: One Canadian Financial Firm
One of Canada’s mid-sized financial services institutions hired Geeks Solutions to help them modernize their infrastructure. Their legacy mainframe was migrated to a hybrid cloud-native environment with integrated DevOps automation. The results were:
- 30% reduction in infrastructure costs
- 4x speed of application deployment
- Enhanced security and compliance readiness
- Improved customer experience by providing services faster
This transformation allowed them to compete with fintech start-ups and get new products to market faster than competitors.
Conclusion
Modernization of legacy infrastructure is imperative to enable Canadian Enterprises to be innovative, agile, and secure in today’s digital world. While the path to modernizing may be daunting, there are positive long-term benefits in organizational efficiency, resilience, and agility that cannot be overlooked.
Organizations can successfully transform their legacy infrastructure by working with a well-thought process and tangible roadmap, employing cloud technologies, DevOps processes, and building their cyber security fit for modern day threats.