Migrating from legacy applications such as content management or business intelligence systems can be an intimidating and expensive task for many companies, but those who choose to undertake such projects often reap long-term benefits.
“It’s kind of like going to the dentist for a root canal,” Mike Zucker, the University of Miami’s IT applications development director, says. “It’s not terribly enjoyable at the time, but if you know it’s necessary, it’s worth it.”
The University of Miami had 42 integrated database management system (IDMS) applications, the majority of which were developed in-house, running human resources, payroll, general ledger, and other student systems. Zucker said that the homegrown systems had been continually muddled together over the years, creating a daunting migration task.
“And we had been doing something that’s been in database books since the late 70s and early 80s, which was integrating everything,” Zucker said. “This seemed like a good idea at the time, but in the end, we we’re left with one giant application which was all in IDMS. So, you can start to get the picture of this horror show.”
With over nine million lines of code connecting the school’s payroll system to its human resources system, Zucker said he knew the school had to upgrade before the situation got any worse. For enterprises in the same situation, weighing options such as the type of migration to make, what it will cost, and whether it’s even necessary are essential steps before going through with the project.
Upgrading versus replacing
Many companies are deciding to upgrade rather than rip and replace their old systems. According to Kevin Quinn, vice-president of product marketing at New York-based Information Builders, if companies are using applications that still have value and contain lots of significant data, “ripping and replacing really shouldn’t be an option.”
At the University of Miami, Zucker felt it was important to upgrade the homegrown systems, as opposed to replacing them with new products, in order to truly cater to the needs of students. He said the applications were something that he could continue to evolve in an updated infrastructure.
“To buy an off-the-shelf product, we would end up looking like every other university, and that seemed like a big disadvantage for us,” Zucker said.
Dallas, Tx.-based Ateras offered an automated solution for upgrading the code, without putting the systems out of commission and offline. The theme of the conversion, as proposed by Ateras, was that “we hope nobody notices the change.” This is something that can only be achieved via upgrading as opposed to starting from scratch. Ateras said the university migrated to a DB2 CICS COBOL environment at the cost of US$2.5 million.
In making a decision, Zucker weighted that cost versus with the licensing fees the school was paying for the IDMS system and decided the conversion would actually save the school money.
“These are our day-to-day, mission-critical systems that are constantly evolving while running against an obsolete database,” Zucker said. “Retaining programmers, attracting new programs and using new tools and methodologies was pretty much impossible.”
Evaluating the cost and time versus the reward
As seen in the Miami example, the return on investment is a crucial aspect to evaluate after deciding on an upgrade. Andy Aicklen, vice-president for HP Canada software, said that companies who have limited resources have to make sure the upgrade has value and they are not simply dumping money “into an empty hole.” Even companies with lots of resources should avoid doing this, Aicklen said.
Calgary-based Good Earth Café took this into consideration when making upgrades to its server technology. The company was looking to expand throughout Western Canada. The coffee chain worked with IT Matters, a Microsoft small business and technology partner, to migrate its legacy systems and integrate with a platform based on Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2.
Good Earth, which was using a peer-to-peer network on Windows 98, said the upgrade has allowed franchise owners for its 13 locations across the province to automatically input sales information into the head office accounting system. Prior to upgrading, staff was spending time manually inputting sales information from each café. Good Earth said the new system has saved franchise owners five to 10 hours a week because of the ability to automate these processes in addition to giving the company access to promotion and sales figures in real-time.
“It’s been a dramatic improvement as we can pull up any item and look at the velocity at each café that we operate,” Nan Eskenazi, co-founder of Good Earth, said. “This really helps make accurate evaluations of a product’s success. So, if we just launched something, we can look at it every day and really see how well it’s selling, as well as analyzing which cafés are not selling well.”
Warren Shiau, a lead analyst at Toronto-based Strategic Counsel, researched the cost savings of the migration. He said it saved Good Earth $420 a month per store in backup and recovery services as well as $630 a month per store in service and support savings.
“Without the new remote connectivity solution between the café locations and the head office, they would have been doing these upgrades (on-site),” Shiau said. “But now, they’re doing it through remote connections on the point-of-sale terminals. So they can diagnose and issue with a point-of-sale terminal from head office, instead of having a local service and support guy come to the site.”
Double check before going through with it
In some cases, IT managers may think they need to move away from their aging systems, but according to Zucker, businesses may find no real value in an upgrade. He said the aggravation and time involved in the University of Miami upgrade meant much of his staff missed their Christmas holidays and experienced many sleepless nights. Unless the application is something that the organization wants to keep evolving and living with, Zucker said, a full-scale upgrade may not be the answer.
“Let’s assume we have a little system that runs in a corner for one specific purpose,” Zucker said. “That system could be running on something really ancient, but if its doing its job and will continue to help the user for the foreseeable future, why spend the money to change it?”
But Michael Bolton, program chair at the Toronto Association of Systems and Software Quality, said that IT managers need to be vigilant when making this decision and look at all factors; especially the hidden ones. “When companies try to figure out how much it costs to keep something in implementation, they will evaluate things like how much times it costs their employees to use it,” Bolton said. “What they never see is how much time it costs to replace the employees who are so frustrated with using it that they quit their jobs.”
Air Canada recognized these hidden costs when it recently decided to upgrade one of its homegrown reporting systems used to calculate commissions for travel agencies. Julie Plante, manager of agency sales and business systems at Air Canada, said the reporting tool her employees were using sported an ugly green screen-style interface and wasn’t very user-friendly. The airline went to Information Builders to implement a browser-based system.
“We wanted to give it a facelift and make the system more modern and transparent to the employees,” Plante said. “The user doesn’t need to know what’s going on in the background or how the database works, so we created a Web-focused front-end. It has drop-down menus to help the user navigate, rather than the codes they need to know with the old system.”
Ultimately, Bolton said, the decision has to be made after companies evaluate the cost of upgrading versus the benefits of upgrading. As simple as it sounds, Bolton said, if the upgrade costs less than to keep the system, it’s probably worth doing.