Are You Cutting Edge or Are You Creating a Legacy System?

In today’s world of business, IT is a central component. If your business is using a legacy system, it can be costing you money, trapping your data, and slowing your efficiency. Let the experts at Catapult Tech Solutions help you to be sure your systems are up to date!

What is a Legacy System?

A legacy system is outdated computing software and/or hardware that is still in use. It is no longer the newest edition of the system and is no longer able to be upgraded and/or supported. It is a system that may be still meeting at least some of the needs of the user but has no ability to update. A legacy system can cause lots of headaches going forward.

Why Not Change?

Change is hard and moving a whole company —or even a single department — to a new system can inspire some internal resistance. There are reasons why a business would continue to use a legacy system.

• Investment: Your business spent a lot of money on its current system. The legacy system may be costing additional money in maintenance and patches to keep it going, but a new system will have a larger upfront cost.
• Education: The legacy software may be built with an obsolete programming language that your employees have learned. A new system may require a new learning curve and significant training.
• Migration: It may be hard to find personnel with the skills to make a successful migration to a new system There may be little documentation about the current system and the original developers have left the company.
• Making Do: The system still meets the needs it was originally designed for so the business may be hesitant to make a change.

What is the Problem?

Your legacy system may get the job done, but it certainly doesn’t allow for growth. What a legacy system does now for the company is all it will ever do. The older technology won’t allow it to interact with newer systems which means a legacy system can leave your business stuck in a ditch!

• Maintenance: Any system will require maintenance, but a legacy system creates additional maintenance costs. Eventually these systems will no longer be supported and will not have any updates available. If the system fails, there is nowhere else to turn.
• Hardware: Legacy systems may only be able to run on outdated hardware that may be hard to obtain and hard to maintain and may not be compatible with advancing technology.
• Data Blockage: Any system collecting data creates storage. Up to date systems can integrate with other systems and upgrade easily. Data in legacy systems can be stuck in a silo and cannot be integrate with newer systems.
• Security: Outdated legacy systems may not have the latest security features and could leave your data vulnerable. In fact, outdated systems leave gaps and holes previously not considered.
• Compliance: Today’s businesses must abide by a strict set of regulations to protect personal data. These regulations change and evolve regularly. With a legacy system, it becomes much harder for a business to comply with new regulations.

How Can Catapult Tech Solutions Help?

The key to updating legacy systems is successful data migration to new systems. Your business needs a company that can extract the current data from the existing system, transform data as needed to match new formats in the new systems, clean up data to address any quality issues, test and validate data to be sure migration is successful, and load the data into the new system.

The consultants at Catapult Tech Solutions will follow a 5 step process to be sure your systems are working optimally for your business.

1. Consultants will develop an in-depth understanding of where you are today and where you want to go tomorrow.
2. We will identify weaknesses in infrastructure and the updates that are needed.
3. Consultants will create a plan for updates that align with budget and time constraints.
4. We will oversee procurement and purchases of hardware, software, and other equipment.
5. Finally, we will install and optimize hardware and software and prepare staff for implementation.

In today’s world of business, IT is a central component of all we do. If your business is using legacy systems, it can be costing you money, trapping your data, and slowing your efficiency. Let the experts at Catapult Tech Solutions help you to be sure your systems are up to date so your business can perform optimally and grow!

Contact Catapult Tech Solutions today! (317) 350-8928

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