Modernizing Legacy System

by Robert C. Seacord

Most organizations rely on complex enterprise information systems (EISs) to codify their business practices and collect, process, and analyze business data. These EISs are large, heterogeneous, distributed, constantly evolving, dynamic, long-lived, and mission critical. In other words, they are a complicated system of systems. As features are added to an EIS, new technologies and components are selected and integrated. In many ways, these information systems are to an enterprise what a brain is to the higher species--a complex, poorly understood mass upon which the organism relies for its very existence. To optimize business value, these large, complex systems must be modernized--but where does one begin? This book uses an extensive real-world case study (based on the modernization of a thirty year old retail system) to show how modernizing legacy systems can deliver significant business value to any organization.

352 pages, Paperback

First published February 23, 2003

About the author

Robert C. Seacord is an American computer security specialist and writer. He is the author of books on computer security, legacy system modernization, and component-based software engineering.