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The Renaissance of Legacy Systems

Method Support for Software-System Evolution

  • Textbook
  • © 1999

Overview

Authors:
  1. Ian Warren

    1. Computing Department, Bradford University, West Yorkshire, UK

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  • Shows how to evolve a legacy system to meet new needs, cost effectively and without losing vital information Managing software change is currently a very topical subject Offers practical advice for change management especially useful to IT managers and consultants Explores such issues as: What is the best way to evolve a particular legacy system and how can the legacy system be migrated to a selected target architecture?

Part of the book series: Practitioner Series (PRACT.SER.)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. Background

    • Ian Warren
    Pages 1-15

  3. Renaissance: a Method for System Evolution

    • Ian Warren
    Pages 17-38

  4. Evolution Planning

    • Ian Warren
    Pages 39-61

  5. Modelling for Evolution

    • Ian Warren
    Pages 63-83

  6. Migration to Distributed Architectures

    • Ian Warren
    Pages 85-106

  7. Case Study 1: Evolution of a Legacy System

    • Ian Warren
    Pages 107-144

  8. Case Study 2: Evolution of a Modern System

    • Ian Warren
    Pages 145-167

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 169-182
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Keywords

About this book

Today, software professionals recognize that change in software systems is inevitable. There are many systems currently in operation, however, which were developed before the need for change was understood. Such systems are commonly referred to as "legacy systems", and were developed with relatively short lifetimes in mind. Software engineering is a relatively young discipline which is continually improving to provide better support for the development of software systems. What were once state-of-the-art techniques, tools, and processes are now dated, and have resulted in systems which are not responsive to change. For historical reasons, dated development practice traded maintainability for other system attributes, such as cost and performance. A significant number of legacy systems remain in operation because they are critical to the business processes which they support. The combination of extended lifetimes and poor maintainability means that legacy systems are expensive to change, and in many cases they cannot accommodate emerging requirements. This is clearly an undesirable situation, which, until recently, has been tackled by replacing the system or attempting to maintain it. Replacing a legacy system is dangerous, since you face the risk of losing vital business knowledge which is embedded in many old systems. In many cases, system replacement is not cost-effective. Conversely, if you attempt to maintain a legacy system, there is often little return on the investment in maintenance effort and the system remains difficult and expensive to change.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Computing Department, Bradford University, West Yorkshire, UK

    Ian Warren

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Renaissance of Legacy Systems

  • Book Subtitle: Method Support for Software-System Evolution

  • Authors: Ian Warren

  • Series Title: Practitioner Series

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0817-7

  • Publisher: Springer London

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag London Limited 1999

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-85233-060-6Published: 06 February 1999

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4471-0817-7Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 1439-9245

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIII, 182

  • Number of Illustrations: 73 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Software Engineering

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