Application Evolution is a condition that most applications experience over time. The application has evolved over time to include functionality for which it was not intended or business rules or technology had changed so much that parts of the application had to be re-written.

The Problem

The problem with most legacy applications is that they have been modified and updated for many years by many different programmers, and sometimes those changes constantly require more maintenance. Also, while many changes have been made to the application, the supporting documentation may not reflect the current functionality and the programming style often contains limitations inherent to the era in which it was developed. 

In many cases, IT managers choose the simple solution of discarding the application completely, and start again with a new system. This may not be appropriate for many reasons:

• Depending on the documentation and the evolution of the legacy application, there may not be enough knowledge of the software in the organization to know what it does and therefore re-write it.
• The application may actually be well written, Memory and CPU efficient, work quite well, and its behavior may be well understood. A new replacement system may perform much worse, require costly training and may not have the same functionality. Hence, it may be worth (cheaper) modernizing the legacy application.
• The evolved legacy application contains years of accumulated experience, which may not be documented elsewhere, so discarding the software may be discarding extensive knowledge and possible a scientific or competitive advantage.
• In many cases an evolutionary is better than a revolutionary approach to modernizing their software

Enterprise Evolution (Intelligent Application Evolution) addresses the consequences whenever a new technology becomes the generally accepted new paradigm. Vendors begin to discontinue support for products built on older technologies in favor of new ones. Companies start to recognize “technology gaps” (of varying degrees of severity) between their current implementations and the latest way of doing business. These gaps in maintenance, interoperability and expertise invariably have a negative impact on agility, viability, cost and operational risk.

Application Evolution Solutions

eCube Systems provides Application modernization and evolution products and services that bridge legacy technology gaps. It enables customers to extend technology ROI, manage risk and leverage existing business assets. eCube uses Application modernization to help companies bring “evolved” legacy applications into synchronization with the latest technology. To maximize legacy ROI, eCube has developed three primary offering categories for application modernization: Legacy Support and Maintenance (LSM), Legacy Transformation Services (LTS) and Legacy Transformation Products (LTP). 

With NXTera 5.0 and NXTware EV, eCube Systems provides an Evolutionary approach to modernizing legacy applications with a systematic phased solution called Enterprise Evolution. This legacy application modernization process is based on the evolution of existing business logic and the integration/Implementation of contemporary platforms, such as .NET, J2EE, Web Services, HTTP/Servlets and XML.

eCube's Application Modernization process is called Enterprise Evolution and it enables companies to extend the value of existing applications. Enterprise Evolution employs a phased approach so that the users can continue to use the existing legacy application while phasing in components of the modernized system. As part of the assessment phase, Enterprise Evolution refractors the legacy software to defend it from “software hardening” the growing inflexibility of legacy systems and enabling it to participate as an enterprise service provider.

Legacy Application Modernization has a cost, but it shouldn't be performance. In many cases IT organization are finding that developing Enterprise solutions that are used to integrate legacy systems together have created a bottleneck that severely impacts performance. A true application modernization strategy embraces a commitment to steady improvement in performance and the fulfillment of service level goals.

Correspondingly, risk is the something every business executive has to deal with. Whether a company decides to “stay put”, use their existing legacy application, or modernize, there is risk involved. eCube is committed to balancing the risk, with proven technology, proven enterprise solutions and application modernization methods that insure the value of IT efforts moving into the future. Application modernization means that old applications can be maintained, renewed, evolved, transformed or harvested to speed new development in such a way as to assure the ability of every enterprise solution to meet its commitments to the business and exceed expectation to reliability.