Migration Strategies Migrations Strategies and

Migration Strategies Migrations Strategies and the Risks, Costs, and Benefits of Replacing Legacy Systems: Examples and Suggestions Legacy systems continue to be widely used by man corporation and government entities for a variety of reasons, with complacency and inertia at the top of this list.

Many outdated computer systems, databases, and other elements of information architecture are still fully functional, and thus despite the creation of more efficient, more effective, and more relevant replacement systems and technologies many information officers and other decision makers have opted to retain their current systems rather than to migrate to newer systems.

The complacency that this decision indicates is hugely damaging to overall efficiency for many such entities, and the problem of migration from legacy systems to newer platforms is an issue that is beginning to be addressed in academic as well as practical literature. There are also very real and pragmatic issues that sometimes act as barriers to migration and support the continued reliance on legacy systems, however, and these are compounded by the complacency noted above.

The costs of adopting new technologies and information systems and migrating data can be quite substantial, and lost productivity during periods of transition -- which often include long periods of downtime for systems as well as training and adjustment periods for personnel -- can also be quite inhibitive. Developing strategies for data migration that minimize these risks while also maximizing the potential benefits of migration is key to convincing relevant personnel to abandon legacy systems.

This paper will present an analysis of current trends in data migration and findings in literature regarding adaptations and replacements for legacy systems. Literature will be reviewed that examines different perspectives towards change in information architectures and computer systems, and different specific pilot studies in the field will also be summarized. This will provide evidence as to current strategies employed in data migration and the transition away from legacy systems, and the degree of success that these various strategies and interventions have been able to achieve.

From these examinations and descriptions, as well as other situations where migration and legacy system replacements have been observed, recommendations as to the most effective migration strategies as well as the most beneficial changes to information architecture can be made. Current Migration Strategies: Examples and Evidence A variety of different migration and legacy system replacement strategies and methods have been employed by different organizations, and with highly varied results.

Some studies have demonstrated major positive changes to organizations following the transition form a legacy system, while other changes to information architecture have apparently had less of an impact. There is also evidence that changes to technology have occurred at a highly uneven rate even amongst entities that are highly similar in nature, suggesting that personal and subjective decision making at each organization is the primary reason for changes to -- or stagnation in -- computer systems and information architecture.

The need for migration away from legacy systems -- as well as many of the practical and bureaucratic barriers that can exist to this migration -- is quite clearly demonstrated in a case involving New York State that began to evolve a little over a decade ago. In Part I of a two part case, Fisher and Bradford (2005) detail the difficulties that were brought about due to the inadequacies of the financial management systems used by individual departments and in their interfaces with the state's Comptroller.

Though the system was still functional, it was not fully compatible with other technologies in use in individual offices, nor had it been adapted and upgraded to continue serving changing needs (Fisher & Bradford 2005). Though these major and frequent problems with the legacy system were noted by state officials, the costs, complexities, and interdepartmental politics that became issues forestalled any significant action for a considerable period (Fisher & Bradford 2005).

A survey conducted in 2008, as a matter of fact, found that many states still estimated that at least forty percent of the computer and information systems in place in their various departments would be classified as legacy systems in need of migration (NASCIO 2008). Enterprise Resource Planning migration strategies were viewed by many agencies in responding to this study as largely ineffective and at best temporary solutions that could be used to guide migration, but inadequate in and of themselves (NASCIO 2008).

This finding supports the view of ERPs found in the earlier New York case study, where only one department attempted to make use of an ERP and was ultimately unable to make this feasible (Fisher & Bradford 2005). An extensive study focusing solely on Enterprise Resource Planning systems, however, found that while there did tend to be a large rate of failure both in the design and in the implementation of these systems, there were definite successes as well (Singla & Goyal 2006).

Essentially, these researchers found that in most cases of failure that they examine, an accurate assessment of risks based on the complexities and interdependencies of the various systems currently in place at most organizations were not taken into account when designing specific ERPs, and that this lack of knowledgeable and comprehensive assessment carried over into implementation (Singla & Goyal 2006).

This, in turn, caused failures in system performance as well as failures to meet capability expectations, leading to a highly negative experience of and assessment with ERPs by the majority of organizations in the study that attempted to employ them as migration tools (Singla & Goyal 2006).

Another study addressed this issue of complexity, and perhaps not surprisingly found that the most effective way to construct appropriate migration strategies and replace legacy systems was not by turning solely to the technologies and systems involved, but rather in seeking human answers and perspectives (Van der Walt & Du Toit 2007).

It is only by adequately understanding and addressing an organization's information needs that enhancements, changes, and upgrades/updates (including wholesale migrations) to its information architecture can be made in a wholly useful and necessary way (Van der Walt & Du Toit 2007). While this might seem obvious on its surface, many strategies have failed to account for this aspect adequately. Even simple change sin information architecture can prove to have large ramifications and hindrances, as well as questionable efficacy.

A small pilot study was conducted in one organization with the introduction of extra graphics and icons warning of various risks to information exposure that were encountered as users navigated their standard information system and accessed information through this architecture (Pattinson & Anderson 2007).

The results of this study were ultimately inconclusive, with differences in reaction and security-taking measures between groups exposed to the extra graphics and a control group experiencing the security interface in a standard way large enough to convince the authors that something had occurred, but without creating a statistically significant difference in the small-population study (Pattinson & Anderson 2007).

Evidence such as this is one of the major reasons that so many information officers are content to let their "good enough" legacy systems remain in place -- the evidence for significant increased efficacy simply isn't there in many technological changes and advancements. Newer Architectures: Author Experience All of the hold-outs that have yet to truly update their information systems and that are still relying on legacy systems for their information control now have another compelling reason to the make the transition.

Though information technology has been ceaselessly advancing for years, it is only in the last few years that the possibilities ofr information control and sharing systems have been truly revolutionized. Wireless has accomplished this.