Your IT budget is 80% maintenance — here’s how to optimize it

Most enterprise IT organizations allocate 60-80% of their IT budgets to maintaining legacy systems rather than innovating powerful new capabilities. This isn’t sustainable in a market where hyper-scalable, cloud-native technologies and architectures, coupled with the meteoric rise of generative AI, drive competitive advantages.

The root cause? Traditional application modernization approaches create a boom-bust cycle where small technology gaps snowball into massive, expensive system overhauls that consume entire teams for years.

Why IT budget optimization matters now

With pressure to innovate, reduce costs, and adopt emerging technologies, IT budget optimization has become a board-level priority. Every dollar spent keeping outdated systems alive is a dollar not invested in growth.

Organizations that modernize strategically can reduce IT maintenance costs, free up resources for innovation, and keep systems current without costly disruption.

The continuous modernization advantage

Leading organizations are adopting Continuous Modernization (CM) as an approach to IT budget optimization, treating technology updates as an ongoing process rather than periodic disruptions. This approach complements existing CI/CD practices by systematically applying incremental updates to applications, APIs, and software components before small gaps become major problems.

Synchrony Systems helps enterprises make this shift through its Modernization Lifecycle Platform (MLP), a system designed to keep legacy and modern technologies evolving side-by-side.

The methodology works by establishing parallel upgrade pipelines that test new versions of dependencies, frameworks, and platforms in isolated environments. Instead of allowing technical debt to accumulate until it necessitates a major overhaul, teams maintain currency through regular, small updates integrated into standard development workflows.

Deloitte’s 2025 Tech Trends report identifies AI as the common thread of nearly every enterprise technology trend. Organizations that use continuous modernization can systematically incorporate emerging technologies without the architectural disruption typically associated with traditional approaches.

Implementation patterns that lower maintenance costs

Successful continuous modernization implementations share common characteristics:

Automated Impact Analysis: Before any update, automated tools analyze potential effects on existing code, dependencies, and system integration points. This preview capability allows teams to understand implications before committing to changes.
Isolated Testing Environments: Updates occur in dedicated branches or environments that simulate production but pose no actual risk to operational systems. Teams can experiment, test, and iterate without affecting business operations.
Integration with Existing Workflows: Rather than requiring new processes, effective CM approaches integrate directly with established CI/CD pipelines. Development teams continue using familiar tools and workflows while gaining systematic modernization capabilities.
Customizable Update Rules: Different applications and business contexts require different modernization approaches. Leading platforms provide configurable rules that allow teams to tailor the modernization process to their specific requirements and risk tolerances.
Transparent Tracking and Rollback: Users have complete visibility into what changed, when, and why, along with reliable rollback capabilities when updates don’t perform as expected.

Industry adoption patterns

Enterprise technology adoption follows predictable stages: technical innovation, experimentation, initial pilots, business scaling, and full deployment. Organizations implementing continuous modernization are typically in the pilot or early scaling phases, gaining a competitive advantage while others struggle with traditional approaches.

Urgency is growing. Application modernization has become pivotal for businesses striving to enhance efficiency, agility, and competitiveness. Enterprise applications must modernize to replace existing procedures with more practical, adaptable, and scalable solutions.

Companies without systematic modernization strategies face mounting technical debt that eventually demands massive, disruptive overhauls — exactly what continuous modernization prevents.

Making the transition

The shift to continuous modernization requires both technical and organizational changes:
Technical Infrastructure: Establish parallel development pipelines, automated testing capabilities, and monitoring systems that can handle frequent, small changes rather than infrequent, large ones.

Team Skills: Development teams need familiarity with advanced automation tools, impact analysis techniques, and systematic upgrade processes.
Risk Management: Promote organizational comfort with continuous changes supported by robust rollback and monitoring capabilities, instead of sporadic revamps.
Governance Integration: Align with existing change management, security review, and compliance processes to ensure continuous updates don’t bypass necessary controls.

The path forward

Ready to implement continuous modernization? Start with pilot applications that represent typical technology stacks and business criticality levels. Success with initial implementations provides both technical learning and organizational confidence, paving the way for broader adoption.

The goal isn’t perfect implementation from day one. It’s establishing systematic processes that prevent the accumulation of technical debt while enabling rapid adoption of new technologies and capabilities.

Given the accelerating pace of enterprise technology change, the question isn’t whether to adopt continuous modernization, but how quickly you can implement it effectively across your application portfolio.

Synchrony Systems’ Modernization Lifecycle Platform (MLP) offers a unified approach, supporting systematic modernization across diverse technology stacks, including mainframe and EGL applications, as well as PowerBuilder and Smalltalk systems. Learn more about implementing continuous modernization for your organization here.

Retirement brain drain and legacy application risk

Finding IT professionals with the expertise to maintain business-critical legacy applications is becoming increasingly difficult. As experienced programmers in legacy languages retire, a widening skills gap emerges, leaving organizations struggling to support essential systems. Industries such as banking, insurance, and government, which have long depended on in-house mainframe or client/server applications, are feeling this shortage most acutely.

The loss of institutional knowledge

As Baby Boomers retire, their institutional knowledge about maintaining and troubleshooting these systems leaves with them. When a software crash, security breach, or routine feature update arises, the shrinking pool of legacy system experts poses a significant risk to IT operations and business continuity.

Younger generations of developers, including Millennials and Gen Z, were never trained on mainframe systems, do not code in legacy programming languages, and generally have little interest in learning outdated technologies. They focus on modern tech trends, leaving legacy systems further neglected.

British Airways’ IT meltdown: a recent example

A recent illustration of the challenges posed by legacy systems is British Airways’ global IT meltdown just this past December. The 95-minute outage left passengers unable to check in online and delayed flights, as pilots couldn’t process vital “load sheets,” causing aircraft to remain on the tarmac. The airline is currently investing £750 million in a three-year IT upgrade to prevent future incidents, aiming to shift its legacy data centers onto a more reliable cloud-based platform.

The skills gap extends beyond COBOL and the mainframe

While COBOL is often cited as the poster child of legacy languages, the skills shortage affects many other aging programming languages that enterprises still rely on. These include:

EGL
PowerBuilder
Smalltalk
Assembler
CA/Gen
C/C++
Ideal
Natural
Pascal/Delphi
PL/I
RPG

Many enterprises continue to rely on these languages, which are deeply embedded in their operations. For example, Fortran is still prevalent in scientific computing, weather forecasting, and engineering applications. Pascal and Delphi Object Pascal persist in niche commercial applications, while Smalltalk is used in some banks, insurance companies, and utilities.

Beyond the skills shortage, legacy systems introduce significant technical debt, making modernization efforts difficult. These outdated platforms hinder cloud integration, mobile app development, and the adoption of AI and Big Data solutions. Additionally, legacy code increases cybersecurity vulnerabilities, exposing businesses to potential breaches.

Addressing the skills gap

For organizations dependent on legacy systems, there are three primary approaches to mitigating the skills shortage: retaining legacy programmers, training new professionals, or modernizing technology.

1. Temporary Band-Aid: retaining and training

A short-term solution is to keep legacy programmers on board longer or incentivize younger professionals to learn legacy technologies. However, this approach requires financial incentives and comprehensive training programs. Some companies have launched apprenticeship initiatives, recruiting young IT talent and providing them with training in both legacy and modern technologies.

2. A better fix: prioritizing modernization

While training new programmers in old languages can temporarily plug the skills gap, it does not eliminate the risks associated with aging systems. Analysts widely recommend that enterprises invest in modernization. According to Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Andy Rowsell-Jones, IT departments spend up to 75% of their budgets maintaining legacy systems. Redirecting these resources toward modernization could foster innovation and business growth.

3. The best solution: microservices extraction for rapid modernization

A full-scale modernization effort can take years, but organizations need solutions now. A highly effective approach is microservices extraction, which allows businesses to modernize critical functions without overhauling entire systems. Unlike traditional modernization, which requires rewriting or replacing an entire application, microservices extraction identifies and migrates only essential business functions, eliminating redundant code and reducing risk.

Conclusion

Organizations still relying on legacy applications built with obsolete programming languages face mounting risks. These systems limit cloud and mobile capabilities, restrict advanced analytics and AI adoption, and present security vulnerabilities. Additionally, as skilled programmers retire and younger developers avoid outdated technologies, businesses struggle to maintain mission-critical applications.

The best way forward is modernization with microservices extraction, allowing enterprises to retain essential functionality while shedding technical debt. This approach accelerates digital transformation, optimizes IT resources, and minimizes business disruption, making it the superior solution for the legacy skills crisis.

5 legacy system cybersecurity risks in 2025

Legacy systems, the reliable workhorses of the past, can become security nightmares in today’s ever-evolving threat landscape. While they may keep critical functions running smoothly, their outdated technology and lack of modern security features create vulnerabilities that cybercriminals are eager to exploit. Let’s explore five key ways legacy systems can significantly increase your cybersecurity risk:

1. Outdated security can’t keep up with modern threats.

Remember the massive Log4j vulnerability that shook the cybersecurity world in late 2021? Legacy systems, often running on unsupported operating systems or software versions, miss out on critical security patches like these. This exposes them to known vulnerabilities attackers can easily leverage to access sensitive data or disrupt operations.

2. Legacy dependencies on aging hardware and software.

Many legacy systems rely on outdated hardware and software for core functionalities. Not actively developed or supported, these components are often riddled with unaddressed security flaws. For a recent example highlighting the security risks posed by outdated software, the Adobe ColdFusion vulnerability CVE-2023-26360 case is a strong illustration. In 2023, threat actors actively exploited this flaw to breach systems, including two U.S. federal government agencies, targeting their outdated versions of ColdFusion. Hackers exploited this vulnerability to gain access, install malware, and perform reconnaissance activities on the compromised systems. However, prompt defensive measures thwarted lateral movement and data exfiltration.

3. Limited visibility into security posture.

Legacy systems often lack the built-in security features present in modern platforms. They may struggle to integrate with modern security tools like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, hindering the ability to have a comprehensive view of a company’s security posture. This lack of visibility makes detecting suspicious activity or potential breaches within the legacy system difficult.

4. Accidental exposure of internal applications.

As business needs evolve, internal applications running on legacy systems can unintentionally be exposed to the internet over time. This creates a direct path for attackers to target them. One example is the 2023 Microsoft Azure data leak, where sensitive internal data was accidentally exposed due to a misconfigured endpoint. This exposure allowed unauthorized users to access information meant to remain internal, underscoring how overlooked configurations in legacy systems and applications can lead to significant data security risks.

5. Slow integration of modern security solutions.

Legacy systems often require significant modifications or complete rewrites to incorporate modern security features like multi-factor authentication or data encryption. Migrating these applications to the cloud is often incremental, as each component needs modification to work securely in the new environment. Until these applications are fully adapted, they’re more vulnerable to attacks and may not benefit from the cloud provider’s built-in security features.

Modernization is the path to a stronger security posture.

Ultimately, a long-term plan for modernizing or replacing legacy systems is crucial for a robust cybersecurity posture. Synchrony’s Modernization Lifecycle Platform (MLP) supports this process by automating the migration and transformation process, enabling collaborative workflows, and offering clear, traceable insights into software modernization. Continuous Modernization (CM) complements DevOps practices like Continuous Delivery (CD) and Continuous Integration (CI) by allowing organizations to apply software updates consistently and incrementally. This method enables smooth upgrades across in-house applications, APIs, and other software components, regardless of underlying technologies, keeping security and functionality aligned with evolving needs.

GenAI and code migration: what’s changing

In the rapidly evolving technology landscape, staying ahead requires not just incremental improvements but transformative leaps. As organizations strive to modernize legacy systems and migrate to more efficient and scalable architectures, the advent of Generative AI (GenAI) is poised to redefine the process.

Over the past several weeks, our discussions have centered on how this cutting-edge technology will reshape our industry and how to harness this power within our business, service offerings, and as part of MLP. Here are six ways we see GenAI unlocking new possibilities for accelerating code migration, enhancing compatibility, and ensuring smoother transitions to modern frameworks.

Enhanced analytics and pattern recognition:

GenAI offers significant benefits for code migration by speeding up the understanding and analysis of legacy systems. It excels at recognizing patterns in code, which are essential for identifying and translating complex structures and dependencies.

Efficiency in code migration:

AI tools can handle time-consuming and repetitive tasks more effectively than humans, especially those requiring detailed pattern recognition. This includes activities like identifying UI patterns and dependencies in code, which traditionally required significant manual effort.

Evolution of migration processes:

The traditional approach of manually creating and maintaining migration libraries and tools is becoming obsolete. AI can automate and streamline these processes, reducing the need for specialized knowledge and extensive manual coding.

Impact on the industry:

GenAI’s rapid improvements and capabilities are poised to change how companies approach code migration. While current migration methods involve custom tools and manual processes, AI can provide more dynamic, on-demand solutions. This shift might lead to significant changes in business models and competitive dynamics in the industry.

Future directions:

Companies that adapt to AI-driven methods will have a competitive advantage. GenAI allows for more sophisticated transformation beyond mere code translation, supporting modern architectures like microservices and micro frontends. The emphasis will shift from simply rewriting code to transforming entire systems to meet contemporary standards and user experiences.

Strategic investment:

As AI capabilities advance, companies are expected to invest more strategically in modernization efforts. AI-driven solutions promise not only cost savings but also the creation of innovative, competitive technology that provides significant business value.

Our discussions highlight that while GenAI will democratize many aspects of code migration, the key to success will be leveraging AI to enhance the complexity and quality of transformations rather than just focusing on code translation.

Contact us if you’re curious about how GenAI can help you modernize your legacy application. We’re happy to discuss your particular needs and help you determine how best to get started.

Why modernize EGL applications?

Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) was a powerful tool in its time, but the technological landscape has evolved significantly. Modernizing EGL applications is crucial for businesses to remain competitive and agile.

Here are the primary reasons to modernize:

1. Improve user experience:

Outdated interfaces: EGL applications often have dated user interfaces that are not intuitive or mobile-friendly.
Enhanced user interaction: Modernization can create engaging, responsive interfaces that meet contemporary user expectations.

2. Increase efficiency and productivity:

Legacy systems bottlenecks: EGL applications might have performance limitations or scalability issues.
Automation: Modernizing can incorporate automation and AI to streamline processes and reduce manual effort.
Integration: New technologies enable seamless integration with other systems and data sources.

3. Reduce costs:

Maintenance overhead: Legacy EGL applications can be expensive to maintain due to limited skill sets and support.
Infrastructure costs: Modernization can reduce hardware and software costs by leveraging cloud-based solutions.

4. Enhance security:

Vulnerability risks: Older applications are often susceptible to security threats.
Compliance: Modernization can help meet industry regulations and data protection standards.

5. Unlock business opportunities:

Data-driven insights: Modernized applications can leverage big data and analytics for better decision-making.
Innovation: New technologies and platforms enable innovative products and services development.

6. Talent acquisition and retention:

Skill gap: Finding developers with EGL expertise can be challenging.
Attracting talent: Modernizing aligns the technology stack with current industry standards, making the company more attractive to skilled professionals.

7. Future-proofing the business:

Technological advancements: Staying up-to-date with technology is essential for long-term success.
Agility: Modern applications are more adaptable to changing business needs.

In essence, modernizing EGL applications is not just about updating the technology; it’s about transforming the business to be more efficient, competitive, and customer-centric.

We offer various solutions, including upgrades and transformations, to migrate your legacy EGL applications to a more modern architecture. Visit our EGL modernization page to learn more.

New experience report reveals details of modernizing six Smalltalk applications to Java

Company Saves Seven Years by Partnering with Synchrony Systems

Greenwich, CT (October 17, 2023) – Synchrony Systems, Inc., a technology pioneer for the management and execution of complex application modernizations, released an in-depth experience report on the modernization of six Smalltalk applications to Java. It describes the unique three-year collaboration between Synchrony and a German IT services provider for the financial sector.

“This project provided an opportunity to turn the modernization experience on its head,” said Synchrony Systems CEO Slavik Zorin. “We co-developed a true collaborative approach that allowed the company’s engineering team to retain control and have complete visibility into all phases of the modernization process while allowing the application development and modernization to run in parallel. Together, we shrunk an estimated 10-year rewrite of well over two million lines of code down to three years.”

“With Synchrony’s help, their advanced technology stack, and a strong team, we completed migrating all of our Smalltalk applications to the desired target Java architecture and were finally able to retire Smalltalk,” stated the company’s modernization project lead and veteran software developer. “We could not have done it without Synchrony’s technology, modernization expertise, and strong commitment to success.”

The Modernization Experience Report includes details such as:

company and project background
modernization initiative challenges, requirements, and vendor selection
Synchrony Smalltalk Migration Technology (SMT) and modernization platform overview
modernization readiness phase, including work breakdown, team collaboration, and project timeline
modernization implementation phase, including parallel track progress, halfway evaluation, functional testing, and code quality
final deliverable, conclusion, and takeaways
an appendix, including analysis of the codebase, pipelines, operations, deliveries, and more

This in-depth report is available for limited release to companies interested in understanding the details of modernizing large, legacy applications. Request your copy.

Synchrony Systems wins the 2022 Digital Innovator Award from Intellyx

Greenwich, CT (December 12, 2022) – Synchrony Systems, Inc., the leader in complex application modernizations, announced today that it won the 2022 Digital Innovator Award from Intellyx, a research analyst firm dedicated to digital transformation.

According to their press release, Intellyx bestows this award upon vendors who are the most disruptive and innovative firms in their space, putting a “spotlight on vendors worth watching.”

“It’s an honor to be recognized for the second time by Intellyx for our application modernization technology,” said Slavik Zorin, CEO of Synchrony Systems. “Intellyx recognizes the innovation and positive impact that Synchrony is making in modernizing how modernizations are done. We are thankful for our conversations with the Intellyx team and the insights we gain from those interactions.”

Synchrony is the developer of MLP, a platform-as-a-service that helps customers gain control over the management and execution of complex application modernizations, thus reducing company risks, improving team communication and collaboration, and accelerating the entire modernization initiative. MLP orchestrates automated processes end-to-end, tracks all modernization activities, and provides complete transparency of all modernization activities to stakeholders.

Application owners use MLP to accelerate their adoption of cloud, mobile, and new web technologies by fast-tracking and de-risking complex modernizations. Migration tool vendors grow their business by making their migration tools and services consumable by customers and system integrators through the platform. System Integrators increase their profit margins using MLP to orchestrate migration tools from multiple vendors and leverage MLP’s systematic, repeatable, and reliable processes to manage complex application modernization.

For more details on the award and other winning vendors in this group, visit the Fall 2022 Intellyx Digital Innovator awards page.

About Synchrony Systems, Inc.
Customers gain control over the management and execution of complex application modernizations using Synchrony Systems’ Platform-as-a-Service–MLP. MLP is an end-to-end solution that orchestrates automated migration and modernization processes, tracks all modernization activities, and provides complete transparency of all modernization activities to stakeholders. This results in reduced company risks, improved team communication and collaboration, and accelerated modernization initiatives. MLP was named a 2018 SIIA CODiE Awards finalist for Best DevOps Tool and a 2019 SIIA CODiE Award Finalist for Best Emerging Technology. Synchrony Systems has been named a Digital Innovator from Intellyx in 2021 and again in 2022.

IT modernization insights for government CIOs

A few of our team members attended the Beyond the Beltway 2022 – Virtual Event hosted by the Center for Digital Government. It was an incredible opportunity to hear directly from state and local government CIOs and CSOs. They discussed the initiatives they are working on, the tech trends important to their region, and the best ways the private sector can be a true partner in finding solutions to their problems.

One thing was certainly evident, government CIOs and CSOs have their work cut out for them. They have to balance federal directives with constituent service expectations within the constraints and protocols of the local governing body. The featured speakers from government organizations across the country were generous with their insights, and the sessions were expertly moderated by the staff at the Center for Digital Government. Here are a few things we learned about technology modernization at the state and local levels of government.

1. Strategic plans inform technology modernization considerations

Although the featured CIOs spoke to the specific needs of their region, they all stressed that their strategic plan, which is available to the public, guides all modernization considerations. Their projects reflect these overarching government directives heard throughout the event:

Keep our systems secure (cybersecurity)
Protect the privacy of our people (PII data)
Meet constituent expectations (digital engagement)
Support remote and hybrid workforces (secure cloud-based systems)
Prove compliance (tracking and reporting)

Any modernization project will advance progress towards the strategic plans and support the overarching directives.

2. CIOs use existing technologies, processes, people, and relationships wherever possible

The featured CIOs spoke passionately about being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. They always first evaluate and leverage existing systems and expertise wherever possible. Then, they review internal processes and skills and engage with partners they know and trust.

If a technology modernization initiative is needed, government CIOs reach out to each other looking for similar, successful projects. They want the highest probability of success with the least risk possible – and don’t want to re-invent the wheel.

3. Funding for technology modernization is only part of the solution

Yes, having money allocated for technology modernization is great. But the CIOs stressed that the funding is only a piece of the overall initiative. The more significant challenges lie in the execution of getting the project completed.

Government CIOs are looking for holistic proposals beyond the specific technology solution. The proposals must also include:

External experts assigned to the project
Internal IT resources required to support the project
Best practice frameworks and guides
Relevant case studies
Knowledge transfer plans
Long-term support considerations (maintenance fees, upgrades, training, etc.)

Comprehensive plans help give the CIOs confidence that the modernization project is successful and sustainable.

One final point stressed by several of the speakers – it’s challenging to retain internal IT talent within the government. It’s a very competitive job landscape, with many choosing employment in the private sector. Therefore, CIOs tend to give favor to external suppliers who will help upskill and reskill government employees to support the modern technology and processes

4. Technology suppliers need to do their homework

The public availability of contact information for government IT staff makes reaching out to the CIOs incredibly easy. While our speakers welcome the outreach, they are often disappointed that technology suppliers haven’t researched what matters for that specific CIO office. The cold outreaches are broad, generalized, and focused on selling to the CIO.

Government CIOs want the outreach, but they want to understand the pitched technology fits within the context of their strategic plan and the ecosystem of providers they already use. This information is publicly available, so they want suppliers to do their homework and frame the solution in the following ways:

Plan – what specific initiatives or directives does the technology modernization support?
People – who are the people involved, and how will others and the community benefit?
Process – what process improvements does the technology modernization support?
Technology – what are examples of it working for similar organizations solving like challenges?
Policy Implications – what are the policies considerations surrounding the technology?
Performance – how do we measure and share positive outcomes resulting from technology modernization?

The final thought one CIO offered to technology vendors was, “bring me leading edge, not bleeding edge, tech.” The agreement was while cutting-edge technology may be interesting, it doesn’t have a place in government until sufficiently proven.

5. Public CIOs want true partnerships with private sector technology providers

State and Local CIOs are operating to plans that extend years into the future. They also are tying every technology investment to the needs of their community, such as democratizing broadband access and keeping their citizens safe from cybercriminals. These challenges can’t be solved with a single technology or even within a single administration. And the balancing forces within the government mean technology modernization progress is slow compared to the private sector.

Therefore, government CIOs want partners with them for the long haul. They want partners committed to being a part of the solution beyond the technology they may provide. Partners who can bring ideas, best practices, and other partners and who take the time to build a personal and trusted relationship give the most value. Those are the partners who work on the government project.

Synchrony Systems’ work in state and local government

We have been fortunate to serve several state and local government organizations such as Bay Area Rapid Transportation (BART), City of Atlanta Fire Department, Oregon State Judicial Department, and New York City Police Department. Through our trusted partnerships, we helped migrate and modernize their legacy applications to modern, cloud-based, and mobile-friendly applications and user interfaces.

Our automated migration and modernization technology allows our partners like IBM, Astadia, and TSRI to leverage our platform and expertise on government modernization initiatives efficiently and effectively.

How to pay off your technical debt (whitepaper)

Modernize your legacy code for a cloud-native world

Many organizations have already moved to the cloud. Yet the tech debt remains. Applications that were once considered “legacy” now run in modern infrastructure, but they’re still monolithic, tightly coupled, and difficult to change. Cloud hosting alone doesn’t make software cloud-native.

The business logic still matters. These systems still run underwriting, billing, claims, supply chains, and core operations. They cannot simply be replaced. But they can’t stay frozen either.

So what actually reduces tech debt? In this white paper, Jason Bloomberg, President of Intellyx, takes a practical look at legacy modernization — what works, what doesn’t, and where many organizations miscalculate.

Inside the paper:

Why lift and shift often fails to reduce tech debt
The architectural challenges behind monolith-to-cloud transitions
The limits of line-by-line code translation
Balancing automation with human engineering expertise
Why iterative approaches reduce modernization risk
The importance of scoping and lifecycle management in architecture transformation

If your cloud strategy hasn’t delivered the flexibility you expected, this paper offers a more grounded way to think about modernization.

Download your free copy of the tech debt white paper today.

Facebook TransCoder: a migration panacea or a mirage?

Last year Facebook announced TransCoder, a tool that converts code from one programming language to another. Like many companies, Facebook also has legacy code that runs critical features and functionality of their platform. They also have billions of active users. It’s no wonder they chose the automation approach for migrating their legacy code to more modern technologies. With this approach, Facebook can preserve its original investment and reduce the risk of significant business disruptions that the proverbial, brute-force rewrite would otherwise bring.

Facebook TransCoder Flow Image — Source: Facebook AI Blog

TransCoder can help modernize legacy systems; however, the devil is always in the details when trying to bring the migrated code to production quality, release the migrated legacy application into production, and retire it.

Any machine learning translation tool can only get the complete migration of an application so far. If Facebook’s TransCoder can translate 90% of the application code, one line out of every ten still needs a software developer’s attention.

For an application with ten million lines of code, one million lines of code would need to be hand-written with production quality.

A manual rewrite of 10% of a large application may take years. In fact, the translated code may never see a production environment. Even with Facebook’s size, virtually unlimited resources, and access to the world’s best talent, the company will still need to manage the entire software migration lifecycle and all of the pieces that it takes to bring the new code into production.

Modernization is more than just code translation

Machine-driven migration tools from source to target programming languages play a crucial role in achieving successful modernization projects. These tools are akin to best-of-breed compilers and their role in greenfield application development. Yes, we need a good compiler, but without the well-established best practices of DevOps, no compiler by itself can ensure the successful completion of a software development project.

What will it take to migrate a large and often complex body of legacy code that runs a critical aspect of the business to a modern technology platform and release it into production without any operational disruptions or development freezes?

This particular challenge has been the Achilles’ heel of every modernization project. No migration tools, including the TransCoder, make any attempt to even mention it or, let alone address it.

Tools like TransCoder are often positioned as “auto-magic.” Buy a piece of AI software, and *poof* all of the migration work is done in a few keystrokes. But a programmer cannot take a COBOL program, wave an AI wand over it, and turn it into microservices or properly architected modern-day application. Right now, AI tools are decades away from being able to transform legacy applications in this manner.

Migration tools inside a modernization process

Migration tools such as TransCoder are just pieces of the chain of moving parts needed to run a well-oiled machine of an otherwise complex modernization process. Therefore, the real value is in integrating such tools inside the entire modernization lifecycle to achieve the kind of an assembly line that is needed to make a complex modernization manageable in terms of process and predictable in terms of time and cost.

No single automation tool is a silver bullet for a modernization project, and we should know. We’ve spent 25+ years modernizing legacy applications, building and using our proprietary migration tools. When we finally managed to integrate the source code migration tools into an entire modernization process, our clients saw considerable gains in code quality, efficiency, and affordability.

Our Modernization Lifecycle Platform (MLP) supports the entire modernization lifecycle: from analysis and planning to transformation and remediation; from build and deployment to testing and production release. It applies the same systematic, iterative, and automation-driven modernization processes to produce production-ready, modernized applications. It is compatible with any translation libraries or rule-sets, no matter the source or target programming language, platform, or framework. By automating the complete modernization process where a tool like TransCoder can be integrated into as part of an entire assembly line, the MLP platform:

Saves thousands of hours of manual effort
Reduces the time and cost of a modernization by 90% compared to traditional approaches
Is 100% automation driven yielding predictable outcomes
Ensures 100% functional equivalence
Eliminates the risk of introducing unexpected regressions or random defects
Provides complete transparency and interoperability for all stakeholders

Like Facebook’s TransCoder, new tools are emerging to take on challenges evident in legacy application modernizations, but they are limited in and of themselves.

An integrated platform that facilitates an automated, reliable, and transparent modernization while ensuring 100% functional equivalence with no operational interruptions is needed to take the migrated application into production.

MLP delivers what TransCoder only promises.