5 reasons to prioritize application modernization
Application modernization should be at the top of an enterprise’s to-do list for five reasons, including security concerns, staffing shortages and competitive differentiation.
Money and time savings
Modernization may be able to help keep costs from spiraling. The older an application gets, the more likely costs such as inefficiencies, hosting costs and outages will increase, said Richard Pountney, senior .NET engineer and software developer at IT consultancy Helastel. “IT moves at a blistering pace and, if it makes operational sense, software applications should follow suit,” he said. For example, one reason to modernize is if operating costs for the application increase year on year, he said.
Tim Panagos, CTO and co-founder of Philadelphia-based Microshare, a data governance platform for IoT, provides a simple calculation for factoring operating costs into a modernization plan. “Applications should be modernized the day before the cost to maintain them exceeds the cost to replace them,” he said.
However, the challenge is that maintenance costs are often intangible — such as how often the business asks for changes and how quickly and accurately staff can carry out those changes, he said.
Bloomberg agrees that while it can be a challenge to calculate total cost of ownership, an estimate of the costs of the new application versus the old one, enterprises have the option to outsource application modernization to a consultant who will give a fixed price. “Maybe it will cost more, because things always do, but at least you have a basis to go on,” he said. Enterprises can also calculate project costs with their own resources by determining who will work on the project, how many hours it will take and how much those workers make per hour, Bloomberg said. “Take that number and double it,” he said, adding that engineers tend to underestimate. No matter which route enterprises choose, it’s mostly going to involve guesswork, Bloomberg said. “It’s a seat of the pants kind of thing, no matter how you go about it,” he said.