Like vintage cars can be modernized with restoration, so can be your systems. Wondering how? It’s Enterprise application modernization that can breathe new life into your legacy systems. This way, you can maximize (squeeze every last bit of value from) your past investment while future-proofing it!
Legacy apps weren’t built for today’s pace, leading to slow updates, mounting security risks, and rising costs. As your app scales, the burden only worsens, stalling innovation and stretching resources thin. The engine weakens, parts are scarce, and maintenance costs soar — sounds familiar? A company with legacy apps faces the same challenges as demands grow.
However, like vintage cars can be modernized while restoring, your systems can also transform. Continue reading to understand how Generative AI fits into the modernization strategy.
The Legacy Modernization Paradox: Why Do Leaders Hesitate?
Application modernization updates legacy systems with modern technologies, boosting speed, adaptability, and cloud readiness through practices like DevOps and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC). The journey may be complex, but the payoff—speed, resilience, and adaptability—is worth it.
These modernization strategies may vary based on business needs, goals, and budgets. Companies often choose one or a combination of these approaches:
Each strategy helps businesses explore new potential while aligning with their unique modernization goals. However, the reality of legacy application modernization can be daunting.
30% of CIOs admit that over 20% of funds meant for new products are instead spent fixing technical debt. With modernization efforts often exceeding 16 months and costing at least $1.5 million, many companies hesitate. Is this fear justified? Here are a few more stats:
Clearly, tight deadlines, limited budgets, and the sheer complexity of legacy systems are often the most significant roadblocks to the success of modernization projects. Moreover, many enterprises find cloud migration offers limited value, agility, and speed beyond basic automation.
But what if you could modernize your applications faster and more cost-effectively than ever? How would that reshape the potential and agility of your business operations? With Generative AI (GenAI), this goal is within reach.
Let’s explore how GenAI can revolutionize your modernization journey, overcoming the challenges that have held businesses back. In other words, let’s discuss how CIOs and CTOs can leverage its power to simplify, de-risk, and accelerate their transformation journeys.
4 Ways GenAi Accelerates the Application Modernization Journey
Gartner predicts that by 2026, over 80% of enterprises will leverage generative AI, either through APIs or AI-powered applications, driving the future of business innovation. As discussed, traditional modernization efforts often face common challenges.
Here’s how generative AI provides powerful tools to address these challenges and accelerate your modernization journey:
Enhances documentation quality and code generation
Poor documentation in app modernization hampers developers’ understanding of legacy code, business rules, and logic, leading to errors, inefficiencies, and delays. Moreover, deciphering complex or outdated code without clear context increases the risk during migration or upgrades.
Generative AI helps in enhancing documentation quality by optimizing the coding process. Here’s how:
- GenAI translates legacy COBOL to Java, breathing new life into decades-old systems and generating clear documentation
- Intelligent code commenting by GenAI enhances readability and maintainability, summarizing complex logic and explaining coding methodologies in clear, natural language.
- GenAI keeps documentation in sync with code changes, ensuring accuracy and saving precious developer time.
- Fosters knowledge sharing by diving deep into the functionalities and protocols of legacy APIs and facilitates collaboration, reducing guesswork and improving team efficiency.
Tools like Amazon CodeWhisperer help extract essential business logic and rules. Enterprises can leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze, convert, and test modernization approaches.
For agencies with vast legacy systems, modernization has become faster than ever. What once took 6–7 weeks to assess 10 COBOL apps can now be done in just days with GenAI!
Tackles high cost and technical debt
App modernization is an expensive and complex undertaking, particularly for enterprises managing broad portfolios with hundreds of business-critical applications.
The financial burden is significant, and failed modernization efforts often lead to wasted time and resources. This inefficiency puts organizations at a disadvantage against competitors who, unencumbered by legacy systems, can innovate and adapt more rapidly.
Technical debt aggravates the problem, accumulating across IT infrastructure in areas such as outdated code, fragmented architecture, and incomplete documentation. Addressing this debt involves identifying, prioritizing, and resolving deeply entangled complexities—a monumental challenge for developers.
