infoTECH Feature

November 24, 2015

Study: Fed Suffers from Legacy Apps that are Hard to Modernize

Federal agency IT managers understand that their legacy systems are ticking time bombs, according to a new study conducted by MeriTalk and sponsored by Accenture (News - Alert) Federal Services, but most are struggling to actually fix the problem.

92 percent of federal IT managers surveyed said that modernizing legacy applications in their agency is an urgent priority, according to the Future Ready Applications: The Modern Legacy study by MeriTalk. The largest reason is security concerns, which 42 percent cited. Also maintenance and management and integration challenges were other reasons mentioned for the need to modernize.

A little less than half (48 percent) surveyed said that their legacy applications were capable of fully meeting mission-critical needs today, but only 32 percent felt these systems also would be able to meet those needs five years from now.

The cost of not upgrading is security, according to 52 percent of those surveyed. Performance issues also were cited by nearly half (47 percent), and 40 percent said increased downtime and service disruptions would arise if these older federal systems were not upgraded. Ominously, 62 percent said that mission-critical capabilities would be threatened if legacy applications were not modernized.

Despite these concerns, the study found that only 53 percent of organizations have a formal strategy for upgrading legacy systems. Further, only a little more than one in four surveyed said they had a business case built around the need for an upgrade.

The trouble is that federal agencies are delaying modernization efforts. According to the study, risk is the main reason for putting off the upgrade—roughly 42 percent indicated that staying with legacy systems was safer than attempting an upgrade. Failure to execute also was cited as a reason for delay, as was an overload of potential options.

“Application modernization provides a powerful opportunity for agencies to upgrade to more flexible and secure systems for innovation and cost-cutting in the long term,” said Tom Greiner in a statement, head of Accenture Federal Service’s technology business. “It’s time for agencies to accelerate their legacy application modernization efforts to drive enhanced mission capability and reduce their reliance on outdated technology.”

Federal IT managers think that more than half of their current legacy applications could be successfully modernized using solutions like re-platforming the existing application, leveraging architecture-driven modernization and remediating the existing application to extend its useful life, the study noted.




Edited by Kyle Piscioniere
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