Assessing Legacy Software Systems: Existence, Challenges, Impact, and Migration Strategies in Organizational Contexts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26713/cma.v17i1.3513Abstract
Legacy software systems remain deeply embedded in modern organizations, often
serving as the backbone of mission-critical operations. Despite their importance,
these systems introduce significant challenges related to security, scalability,
maintainability, and integration with modern technologies.
This study provides an empirical examination of legacy software systems based on
responses from 200 IT specialists across public and private organizations. The
findings reveal high dependency on aging systems, widespread technical and
organizational challenges, and substantial impact on business workflows and
digital transformation efforts. The study also highlights modernization strategies
currently adopted by organizations, including cloud migration, reengineering, and
incremental refactoring. Based on these insights, this research proposes the need
for structured evaluation models and future application of the
Goal–Question–Metric (GQM) paradigm to measure the depth and breadth of
legacy software system dependency. The results contribute to a deeper
understanding of legacy software system realities and offer guidance for
sustainable modernization practices.
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