Techopedia defines a legacy system as an outdated system, language or application that is used instead of available upgraded systems. The term “legacy” is often used pejoratively, but the reality is that most organisations do have some legacy infrastructure. It can be problematic as it gets older, becoming incompatible with new and emerging apps and technology. When legacy hardware and software is out of support with unpatched security elements it is at greater risk of a cyber-attack. Costs to run legacy systems increase as services become more frequent and more things start to go wrong. Older systems that have bits added here and there become increasingly complex and they invariably take longer to configure and provision to accommodate new services. New services and apps take longer to go live and therefore bring benefits to the users and businesses suffer from being cumbersome, slow and often with insufficient capacity to grow with the business.
Most CIOs understand that they need to modernise their infrastructure if they are going to keep up with the demands of a modern business. Modern apps and workloads need fast, agile, secure and scalable infrastructure to run as efficiently as they are able.
But a modernisation project involves more than just refreshing hardware when it needs an upgrade, it requires serious consideration and planning, with a long-term strategy. A strategy that leads the business towards the cloud. When planning to refresh infrastructure, consider solutions that will meet current needs, either on premise, or in the cloud, but also be flexible enough to adapt to moving other apps and workloads to the cloud, plus a plan for building and developing new apps and services, in the cloud. The cloud is the way for businesses to scale and to provide the power, speed and agility that modern apps demand. Only by speeding up the time to production, reducing IT overheads and automating business processes will businesses be able to compete. By automating as much as possible, staff can focus on high value work and are better placed to give the business a competitive edge.
The journey to the cloud is the most important aspect of any modernisation strategy and in “The Creative CIO’s Agenda: Six Big Bets for Digital Transformation”, KPMG places the journey to the cloud at the top of the list of digital priorities for CIOs, in order for them to both defend against disruption and be disruptors themselves.
Oracle Solaris was developed for the cloud and can accelerate the adoption of workloads in the cloud, with fast and intelligent provisioning, virtualised networking, simplified administration and stringent security features. By upgrading to Oracle Solaris, businesses can be assured of total protection for data and applications, speedy performance and simpler data management. Choosing infrastructure that is designed for the cloud will mean that whether applications and workloads are ready now, or in the future, it is a simple and seamless process.
Read more in the Oracle SPARC Solaris for Dummies guide or help your applications perform at optimal levels by running a WTL enterprise Solaris and Linux healthcheck.
Useful Links
Tech Funnel Article – Top 10 Priorities of CIOs in 2018
The Creative CIOs Agenda – Six Big Bets for Digital Transformation