LEGACY MODERNIZATION SERVICES

LEGACY MODERNIZATION SERVICES WE PROVIDE AT SOFTACOM

There are many definitions of what legacy modernization means across the web. But we have to bring the definition here to ensure we're on the same page.

Legacy modernization, or legacy system modernization, is a process including one or several of the following options:

• enhancement (new feature encapsulation);
• application migration services: migration of the legacy system to another hosting (software) platform, another hardware platform, the latest version of the programming language it is built in, or another programming language;
• re-engineering & replacing;
• support, continuously embracing some set of the enumerated options.

After the possible options for modernization are defined, it is necessary to choose the appropriate one. To do this, you need to define ongoing business needs and goals your company seeks to achieve. Then match them with the problems caused by the limitations of the legacy application, legacy software system, or the entire corporate IT infrastructure.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES

When it comes to legacy software modernization, migration and re-engineering processes often go hand in hand with rebuilding or replacing some modules of the existing software system with newly created software applications.

Our company provides not only application modernization services, but also builds new enterprise grade software such as:

• desktop applications
• mobile apps
• websites and cloud applications with advanced back-end
• embedded software

Our core technologies, Delphi and .Net, meet all the requirements and allow performance of all the tasks during the re-engineering and replacement steps of the software modernization process. Embarcadero Delphi 10 is the fastest way to create and update data with intensive, distributed, and highly interoperable applications with a developed and visually appealing user interface for Windows, Mac, mobile devices, IoT, and other platforms.

.NET Framework is highly popular across the world platform for building many different types of applications such as web & cloud, mobile, desktop, microservices, IoT., machine learning, and many others.

The similar possibilities and functionality each of the technologies offer has its pros and cons. Being developers with such a deep and long expertise in both of them, our experts will suggest you the most appropriate solution based on your specific case.

OUR DELPHI AND .NET LEGACY MODERNIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES PATH

Softacom Delphi and .Net software and application modernization path

Our experts have run nearly 50 modernization projects, and we have developed our own unique modernization path.

1. Software assessment

• Sign all necessary confidential agreements and NDA - each part should be confident, so its intellectual property will be protected;
• Initial business analyses of the existing software, business logic, rules, specifications — it’s difficult to evaluate any migration without understanding how the current software works;
• Source code review and analysis;
• Risk management — in this stage we collect the possible risks and measure their value before discussing with the client the possible resolutions.

After analysing the results from each step, our team can provide the best solution for migration — migration to an up-to-date version of Delphi or to another technology. It depends on migration goals, as well as the value of UI or the business logic code in the current app. Using our internal methodology, we can make a decision which way would be more cost effective, i.e. if the current software has 10% UI and 90% — we have to keep the existing source code; if 80% UI and 20% business logic — we can go to a more preferred technology.

2. Writing software requirements specification

• Business Analysis — in this stage, the Business Analyst collects requirements from the client’s team (user stories), performs decomposition user stories to tasks, and describes detailed requirements for each task. Usually we use JIRA and Confluence systems for project management and project knowledge base storage. The client’s team has its personal accounts and can be involved in the process;
• One of the more common risks in this stage can be loss of knowledge about the details of the project on the client’s side. In this case, our specialists have to perform reverse-engineering;
• Together with our Human Resources Manager, our Project Manager gathers the project development team from the company resources stack;
• The Project Manager plans the first milestones and creates the project roadmap.

3. Implementation

Each migration can be done step by step, when the client has the working product after each step or like one shot migration without any intermediate releases — this behavior depends on the business requirements - deliver some improvements as soon as possible or provide the final migrated product. According to these requirements, we use Agile (Scrum) or traditional (Waterfall) software development methodologies.

An example of one of the migration of case studies (step by step migration):

• Release 1. Just migrate legacy project to Delphi 10.2 (development, updating components, compile the project, QA);
• Release 2. Migrate software project from VCL framework to FMX framework project (development, QA);
• Release 3. Legacy VCL UI forms to FMX rich UI forms (development, QA);

4. Support and maintenance

After migration is complete, we can perform different types of work, such as:

• Daily/weekly/monthly maintenance;
• Software enhancement;
• Bug fixing;
• Level 3 Support (if necessary, we can gather a team and provide Level 1 and Level 2 support as well (including 24/7 support)).