Dr. Julia Stachofsky
What first got Dr. Julia Stachofsky, assistant professor in business information systems, interested in researching legacy systems? “The silly answer is I just think it’s cool. As a kid, I used to spend a lot of my free time installing old operating systems and collecting computer ‘junk.’” While there is no standard definition of a legacy system—something that Stachofsky’s research focuses on—the term commonly refers to older computer systems, software or technology in use when newer alternatives are available.
Fast forward to when Stachofsky worked in industry. The biggest challenge was not applying new technologies, but rather maintaining existing systems and integrating them with legacy systems. “I find this area to be a fascinating intersection of computing history, history of organizations and a difficult design challenge,” she notes.
The reality is that what came before sometimes dictates what comes after.
“If a legacy system isn’t capable of meeting certain technical or business requirements, it limits what new services or efficiencies an organization can implement,” says Stachofsky. “Instead of leveraging technology for business innovation, the technology is dictating the boundaries of what’s possible.”
Every industry that uses computers faces this challenge. “Society screeches to a halt if these systems fail,” says Stachofsky.
Legacy systems can impact collaborations within the business, with vendors and with customers. However, according to Stachofsky, there are a few things to keep in mind when systems are upgraded or integrated with a legacy system:
- No matter how much better the new technology seems, it must meet the same business requirements that the legacy system is already meeting for the organization.
- Users in an organization will be used to the legacy system and will compare it to any new system. In some cases, this can be a favorable “Wow, this is way easier in the new system” and in other cases it can be an unfavorable “I can’t do X anymore.”
- For system integrations, companies must determine the minimum functionality needed to integrate the systems together. Each additional functionality represents a new point of failure.
- Often, more user-friendly interfaces are built on top of a legacy system to modernize the experience for the end user rather than replacing the system outright.
As the number of experts in legacy systems dwindle, there are now fewer people who can maintain these systems without a significant learning curve. Stachofsky sees this as a prime use case for generative AI to help developers get up to speed quickly with legacy codebases, although it should not be seen as a replacement for proper investment, training and maintenance of systems.