Connection paper for Group Research Paper

Running head: Enterprise Resource Planning for Legacy Systems

Enterprise Resource Planning for Legacy Systems

Samanth Raparthi

Srikanth Vykuntapu

Surya Prakash Bokka

Jaya Vaishnavi Neerukonda

University of the Cumberland's

ABSTRACT

We would notice in the paper about the information which is related to the modernization of the enterprise and how with the help of emerging technology the legacy application is being used in a modernized approach. We see most of the organizations have adapted to the enterprise resource planning in the earlier times and some of them are continuing in the traditional approach. Organizations must rethink on their approach due to the improvements which are happening in the technology aspect and come up with the changes in the software to sustain at the same time be in the competition with the others in the market. They should also focus more in terms of bringing up with new products at a rapid pace to smoothly move towards being leader in the market. In the era where modernization has become must, company should be ready to introduce new products that too with cost optimization. For also this to be in place, they should upgrade their systems in best way which can suit or modernize their systems as much as possible by implementing the new technologies. The enterprise resource planning should be ready to adapt to these new changes and built the system with latest technology by developing and designing the tools which are capable in performing on par with the new technology and give the desired results in time.

INTRODUCTION

In this world where competition is also becoming a important aspect in once performance whether it is as an individual or an organization. To be a part of this competition, organization must maintain high productive rate and at the same time should be successful as well by bringing out quality products on par with other in the market. For us to achieve this we must make sure the enterprise resource planning framework should be robust and at the same time efficient. To make sure we furnish the various activities which support business processes and business planning by means of end to end application we must have an ERP system in place. This will help in providing end to end solutions for the entire enterprise in adapting to the technology which is suited for the applications to be effectively performed.

We can understand that the need of the hour is to modernize the business activities which would help us in delivering the IT activities in time. Legacy systems are the once which helped us way back to ensure we run our business smoothly, but it is not the case that we cannot run with the same systems but yes, we would be slowly losing our ground where in other are already into implementing the new methods to their legacy systems for better outcome. We can observe that the legacy systems are not flexible, very rigid structures wherein they lack to attend the changes and be on par with the new technologies which are already in the market leaving their mark. If we think integrating legacy systems with modern technologies is simple, we are mistaken it is a very complex task to be implemented. To overcome such situation, the only options which we are left with are to modernize the legacy systems in best suited manner for out performing in the market.

RESEARCH CONDUCTED

ENTERPRISE REOURSE PLANNING EVOLUTION PROCESS:

REASONS TO MODERNIZE THE TECHNOLOGIES:

· The first and foremost thing which come to our mind is the cost involved in maintaining legacy systems is high and the results as well are moderate when we think about them compared to the new technologies. As these tools are of ages, it will be hard to perform task in the latest projects and at the same time the knowledge of the employees is limited to legacy systems which is not a promising act even for them as there are almost blind with the new technologies which are in the market. We all agree to this point of improper planning and designs will lead to a redundancy in the systems, data and the applications too.

· We must understand the basic point about sustaining in the business is to ensure we would need a rapid work environment, only then we can even aim at becoming the top-notch organization. In IT systems should be capable enough to working in which ever situation by taking support from advanced features and functionality. Lack of adaptability and scalability of the legacy systems with lead us to in enough product delivery and always there will be a risk of losing the hold in the market (Bowling & Rieger, 2005).

· Our main reason for modernizing the legacy applications is to integrate the applications in various areas of the organization with cost effective approach. We can integrate in two different ways which is coupling all the applications together and maintaining the interoperability. Old time’s applications were built with most complexity and so is their architecture which is poor enough to give instant solutions to the problem which shows up during the operations.

· We can also try to migrate the platform as well, it deals with the movement of various platforms from the mainframe-based actions to another segment which forms a distributed environment. This environment of distributed platform is best suited to serve the purpose of being flexible towards various infrastructures. Here it becomes most important to build the strategies keeping the platform selection which should be migrated.

· We can observe in some organizations they are trying to modify the existing applications with the help of coding language and this works with their actions. Here we can easily make it is tedious task and at the same time no so flexible in all the cases. Motto to modernize the existing application is always to reduce the cost and work efficiently (Bhimani, 2009).

KEY ISSUES OF MODERNIZATION TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS:

1. Legacy systems lack to achieve the new business transformation as they cannot meet the business activities which mean they cannot accept large number of customers and can provide the services.

2. As technology is emerging at rapid pace, everyone is trying to catch up with the technology day in day out, so lack of resources who can work with the legacy systems on organizational activities.

3. Lack of speed both in terms of work as well as transactional with work and at the same time low capacity in accepting more applications and deliver service.

4. For us to integrate the business unit with the most advanced technology, it would need huge investments to adapt new technology and enable business transformation.

5. We have to be good in analysing various aspects of the legacy systems and areas of interest to reconstruct the existing legacy systems into the modules that can be works up on and modernized in order to be efficient enough in working effectively.

METHODOLOGY INVOLVED:

Before we start looking into the process of modernizing the legacy application, we should have a clear understanding of the several outcomes if we do not execute the right way of modernization. On should have a thorough knowledge and understanding on the concepts related to modernization so that there would be no risk associated during the process of modernization of legacy systems. We should assess the present state of the legacy system to consider all the aspects of risks which may occur. One must ensure the assessment process is done in a systematic way and that too every detail is collected during the procedure to nullify the chances of future risk and at the same time would be effective in production growth. We can choose from the several modernizations techniques which are already developed as per the requirement of the organization. We should keep in mind that the section should be so effective that the actions are rapid, and which can deliver its working aspects. Assessment gives us a scope of improvement and we can also be selective in terms of the approach as well. We should keep one important aspect in mind about the custom product development which we enable us to come up with the right options to be executed in terms of modernizing the legacy systems. Even during the process of modernization at times the legacy system might fail, so we should be taking on step at a time and analysing things and then the next step, this will help us to reduce the complexity of the existing application. If we find the existing architecture is scalable, we should be able to make changes in such a way that is it flexible and adaptable to delivering the best and we should keep in mind the application requirements as well as that would kill the complexity (Embrechts et al, 2002).

LEGACY SYSTEM AND ITS MODERNIZATION APPROACH:

Strategies should be made based on the legacy system and various aspects surrounding it to make best out it in terms of performance. We can figure some approaches which could be beneficial for us in transformation, SABA, reverse engineering, Architecture-driven modernization, Visaggio’s value-based decision model.

ARCHITECTURE-DRIVEN MODERNIZATION TYPE AND DEVELOEMENT:

This is one of the types of the modernization wherein it deals in development of the strategies based out of the understanding on the organizational needs and how functions in handling the existing application software component is. Here the approach is completely based out of the analysis and it is designed accordingly to plan and strategize things in a structure manner. Here the advantage is we can choose the platforms according to the application path and they are independent of the code language. This enables the user to adapt the best software which ensures success (Nah et al, 2001).

SABA PROCESS:

This is a framework which is considered to be high-level one which includes various aspects of legacy systems to understand during planning phase in an organization and also has technical issues in the path of migration. It gives that extra edge to the developer in making decisions that too based on the iterative method for modernizing options from the in removing the old software or in simple to outsource them on the necessity. The main aim of the frame work is, it identifies the medium to know the legacy system problems while also providing a path to analyse the future obstructions which are mainly based on the software choices.

REVERSE ENGINEERING:

We can understand about the naming itself, this is a process where reverse engineering is included in migration of the paths from the location to the new environment and the strategies are to be developed to make it more sensible approach. To gain access to the data in legacy the applications use reverse engineering methodology of the operations, even though migration is the last step in the process. This Model has that advantage wherein most of the companies with legacy systems are investing in this method for better and quick results specially when they are working on lengthy projects..

IMPLEMENTATION

LEGACY MODERNIZATION TECHNIQUES AND PROCESS:

In this modern era, they are several techniques which can modernize the legacy applications and can be adapted as well to best of the use. Some of techniques are discussed below,

The above diagram depicts the various modernization techniques based on the legacy applications and its impact and effort over technology architecture and functionality.

Encapsulation technique:

This is one of the techniques which can help in modernizing the application, that too by using existing legacy software components. Here in this process, existing software components, it has to leave the code which is current and then connect with new presentations and get access over the layers Vis API. This will help the usage of the existing application and in the process extends its features to work according to the new technology. This allows a new interface to a legacy component making it easy to access to the software components. This is considered to be one the fastest solution to the legacy systems and at the same time enhances the productivity with maintenance of the quality coding systems. This only deals with interface, cannot furnish all the activities related to maintenance (Wang, 2002).

Rehosting Technique:

This is a technique which is least prone to any risks as the main functioning is moving of the mainframe application without any alteration to the cloud infrastructure. This maintains contact with the enterprise without any negative impact along with being faster as well in terms of implementation. Here there is no need for any modification of the code.

Replat forming Technique:

This is a process, where it needs minor alterations to the code for adjusting it to a new platform while preserving existing operations. The changes required are managed in database and removing and adding computing related resources. Here it includes cloud functionality and migration with cost optimization.

CLOUD MIGRATION PATH AND ITS IMPACT:

Code Refraction and Issues:

Here we can notice how it works with the restructuring and optimizing the current code without making any alteration on the external mode of the actions. This would solve several technological issues and would help in improvement of the components future and structure. This process has access to the cloud data and increases the efficiency in cost optimization.

Re architecting Process:

This is a process where, while shifting to a new application the architecture makes certain changes to the code which fully exploits the new and makes it better in terms of the capabilities to function their activities in the platform. This is a technique where, risk occurrence and cost are very minimal and it is also simple to be performed and good at the outcomes.

The above graph depicts the modernization options based on its costs and benefits. Based on the level of performance pf various actions they are selected and adapted to the business unit.

Rebuilding process:

The word speaks for itself, wherein here it redesigns the applications to extract the information from the resources while preserving their scope and specifications securely. The idea of redesigning the application will open the door for the several new ideas and that will also lead to adapt new features and function accordingly.

Replacing process:

This is one of the processes which we do not use quite often, only in certain cases it would be good decision to replace the entire application with the aid of any tool rather than investing huge amount in modernization. This process of making changes has lot of cost included and also, we cannot guarantee the performance as well (Wang, 2002).

CST Modernization technique and Its Use:

 Targets more on raising the bar on software updates and provides new solutions that aid in framing policies about future.

 Allows the organization to frame policies and objectives that are according to the future updates that might occur in software’s.

 Eliminates the conversion of software to update or change the preferences such as language or many other settings.

 Future business and technical management are taken care of, with the transferring responsibility.

Challenges and Goals that Encounters:

· Enabling the IT organization in transforming in accordance to the requirement that too with limited changes to the codes.

· Aim to reduce the cost with minimum alteration and it will enhance the usage of the existing codes in the coming future.

· Overall maintenance in cost by allocating more budget toward innovations and advancements.

· Investment in cloud and redirecting the user to make use of social media platform to express their Ideas and thoughts.

· To improve IT application’s agility and enable it to work in the future activity.

· We can also look at other techniques which can be used as per the requirements like, gradual replacement, total transformation duct tape approach, no systems changes and improving existing etc.

CONCLUSION

Technology keeps updating and new applications enter market that are very much advanced compared to the existing systems. Few organizations have implemented these techniques from a very long time and hence it is tough to upgrade to the existing systems. Data format stored might not be compatible all the time with the new applications and hence it is better that a medium application should be chosen so that it becomes easy to merge data and also the chances of accuracy will be high. There are many methods as discussed above with merits and demerits based on the software used and the compatibility with the data. The apt strategy is to be chosen keeping in mind many factors and this should need agreement and acceptance of many departments in the organization. Modernization techniques are tough to introduce and are to be chosen with more clarity based on the confidentiality of the data. Once chosen, the change must be communicated to each and every one and they should be trained on the new application chosen so that they use the techniques with much knowledge and also might help in data migration. Trained professionals must be hired to implement these modernization techniques for a smooth workflow.

REFERENCES

· Bhimani, A. (2009) ‘Risk management, corporate governance and management accounting: Emerging interdependencies’, Management Accounting Research, 20 (1), pp. 2-5.

· Bowling, B. M. and Rieger, L. (2005) ‘Success factors for implementing enterprise risk management’, Bank Accounting and Finance, 18 (3), pp. 21–26.

· Embrechts, P., McNeil, A., and Straumann, D. (2002): Correlation and Dependence in Risk Management: Properties and Pitfalls. In Dempster M. A. H. (ed.): Risk Management: Value at Risk and Beyond, pp. 176–223. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

· Kuritzkes, A., Schuermann, T., and Weiner, S. M. (2003): Risk Measurement, Risk Management and Capital Adequacy in Financial Conglomerates. In Brookings-Wharton Papers on Financial Services, pp. 141–193.

· Nah, F.F.-H., Lau, J.L.-S and Kuang, J. (2001) “Critical factors for successful implementation of enterprise systems”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 7, No.3, pp. 285-96.

· Wang, S. (2002): A Set of New Methods and Tools for Enterprise Risk Capital Management and Portfolio Optimization. In the Casualty Actuarial Society Forum, Summer 2002, Dynamic Financial Analysis Discussion Papers, pp. 43–77.