– Zahi Yaari, VP EMEA at SnapLogic
When it comes to IT infrastructure, especially in the financial sector, conversations around legacy technology systems are frequent, and often coupled with discussion around how it’s holding the company back. In some ways, this is no surprise. Businesses need IT systems that are agile, easy to access, reliable and secure.
But the modern reality is, despite all the drum banging to kill it off, legacy tech isn’t going anywhere. Doing a complete IT infrastructure overhaul is risky business, and something that can be exceptionally complex. As a result, businesses are less likely to rip up and replace their legacy IT than you might think. It’s just too painful, expensive and they often don’t see the point. In many businesses, legacy tech still serves a purpose too, acting as a central home of data within the organisation and helping to maintain compliance.
Making legacy tech work
At the end of the day, most companies just want better data and faster answers – they don’t want the technology headaches that come along with achieving it. So, if we’re accepting that legacy tech is sticking around for the foreseeable future then what’s the solution?
Many businesses have moved to introduce a host of cloud services and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. Migrating data and applications to a purpose-built cloud platform can provide a significant degree of security but it can also deliver on a host of other benefits, providing businesses with a scalable data infrastructure solution on an operational expenditure (OPEX) basis. The cloud can also free up the time of IT teams to focus on strategic projects that will further the interests of the business, as opposed to maintaining outdated systems.
Cloud technology has provided companies with a host of new ways to do business – from machine learning patterns that can make startlingly accurate business predictions to the growth of IoT delivering on the promise of a more connected environment. But there’s no need for it to be a case of one or the other. Bringing cloud platforms together with legacy systems provides businesses with the best of both worlds in one hybrid IT system.
However, a big part of making the information residing on legacy tech accessible, and usable for the right people at the right time, comes down to automating the integration process between the legacy systems and modern cloud platforms.
Introducing automation
Integration is an obvious choice to help with this, but the traditional manual, time and resource intensive options just aren’t feasible for modern enterprises. Modern, low-code, self-service integration tools that harness the power of AI are the answer. They work to not only improve the flow of data within an organisation but to also transform how business users can leverage data as part of their day-to-day work.
By automating manual integrations and common workflows and processes, data and applications across the enterprise are connected quickly, and complete process flows can be stitched together with confidence and ease. The result: productivity surges and teams across the business can then be freed up to focus on higher-value strategic projects that drive the business forward. It also means everyone across the company works from the same data – always connected, up to date, and accurate. Teams will then never miss an opportunity to engage and delight a customer, exactly when and where needed.
This approach can also help ensure compliance across the whole system, by managing the data on legacy infrastructure to maintain compliance, but still make that information accessible and useable for the right parts of the business at the right time.
The hybrid future
With so many capabilities for hybrid cloud, the fear mongering in the IT sector that a business can’t be successful if it still has legacy tech is frankly false.
IT teams today have the ability to build scalable, flexible IT systems that deliver all the business benefits they need. Making it work means investing in new technologies that can deliver a more secure and intuitive experience or are more flexible to accommodate modern working demands.
The key to this lies in ensuring businesses adopt the technology that enables them to deliver better results – bridging the gap between legacy software and newer technology so that there is a defined process in place for the company’s data.
Legacy tech is not and will not be going away. Instead, businesses are figuring out a balance. Welcome to the hybrid cloud world… forever.
