For the past few years, the number of businesses adopting cloud technology has been soaring. According to a recent survey, 93% of organizations today are using cloud services while 70% have already adopted a cloud-based infrastructure to modernize traditional IT setups like on-premises software.
Cloud-based infrastructure has become increasingly popular thanks to benefits such as enhanced scalability, remote working capabilities, reduced IT costs, strategic disaster recovery, and other business benefits.
Given these benefits, it’s clear that maintaining existing traditional infrastructure simply doesn’t compare to cloud adoption. That said, there are challenges to it that you need to address.
The problem with obsolete software
Pre-cloud enterprise structures are muddled with obsolete software, most of which are written for a specific use. For example, an auto insurance company may still be using a decades-old program to help collect insurance claim pictures from digital cameras onto desktops and laptops. Because it’s obsolete, it likely has no mobile application capabilities — a must in today’s cloud-driven markets.
Such types of software are problematic due to compatibility issues and lack of security support. And they can break over time, leaving IT support to apply band-aid solutions that can cause other system issues. They can be a real barrier to innovation, too. They typically have clunky user interfaces and code that don’t work well with modern platforms like the cloud.
One solution to this challenge is to scrap software built for on-premises IT infrastructure and build a newer version from the ground up for a cloud environment.
Building software for the cloud can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Instead of risking disruptions to business, many companies simply migrate existing software to the cloud without changes. This is quicker, simpler but has one great disadvantage: it hinders your business from taking full advantage of a cloud solution’s benefits.
Modernize your on-premises software
When you move an application from an on-premises data center to the cloud, you don’t have to totally rebuild it or migrate it without changes. There are other common strategies to integrate obsolete software into modern cloud-based solutions:
Normalization
Industry-leading open source tools can create a hybrid solution that works immediately and across different cloud providers. This is accomplished by normalizing the structure of your obsolete software, allowing it to plug into any infrastructure that you want.
Replatforming
Instead of entirely rebuilding your on-premises software for the cloud, it can be optimized or have its basic elements tweaked so that it can operate smoothly in the cloud. This allows your workloads to take full advantage of the cloud’s scalability and cost benefits, without huge resource commitments from your end.
API first approach
Another approach involves transforming your on-premises business application to hundreds of application program interfaces (APIs) running on the cloud as a mobile app. This new cloud-based solution dynamically scales to match all workloads.
While the process of migrating software to the cloud can be complicated, time-consuming, and costly, the benefits are well worth it. At Spectrumwise, we can simplify the process and free your organization from the worries associated with obsolete technology — costly hardware and software, packed server rooms, and complex networks. Talk to us about how cloud migration can be simple.
