AIOPS WHAT IF WE looked at legacy infrastructure in IT through the same lens? Too often, tech teams rush to discard mainframes and legacy infrastructure, immediately aiming to build something shiny and new. However, just as the Saqqara was revolutionary at the time of the built, and acted as the origin point of Egypt’s 96 other pyramids, mainframes that we now classify as ‘legacy’ were the epitome of innovation when first set up. Like the thousands of blocks that built the pyramids in Saqqara, mainframe applications have thousands, even millions of lines of code. Each serves a very specific purpose: a purpose that has probably outlasted the developer who first wrote the code. Only once this purpose is examined and understood, can enterprises move onto successful app modernisation.
Learning from a Pharaoh’s thought process Organisations have been rushing to modernise their IT infrastructure in the last decade, and the race to digitally transform has picked up even more since the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. Caution is important here, as decisions made in a rush today may end up hindering progress for decades to come. What if we moved away from terms such as ‘app modernisation’ and ‘digital transformation’? Instead of associating our approach to making applications timeless with ‘transform’ and ‘overhaul’, it may be beneficial to just focus on extending software to generate valuable business outcomes. Map the goals of a tech project, and then work backwards to understand what you need to achieve it.
Understanding legacy infrastructure by looking at the Egyptian pyramids When you look at the Saqqara Necropolis, the oldest of Egypt’s pyramids, do you immediately discard it as an irrelevant relic? Not at all. You admire it for the architectural skill involved in its construction, and the story behind its eternal beauty. BY MARC ZOTTNER, FIELD CTO, VMWARE TANZU
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ISSUE II 2021
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